Property charge to replace 50p income tax rate

Nailing jelly to the wall again.

Expect to see a raft of clever multiple ownership arrangements come into force if this goes ahead.

The innunerable opportunities that will be created for the "loophole creation" industry could have the added benefit of lowering unemployment numbers

So another tax based on ability to pay? Wouldn't it be better to do away with the main residence exemption for CGT and pay tax when you've made a profit above your annual CGT allowance?

The chancellor has previously mentioned the wide-spread tax avoidance around high-end properties. Often properties are bought by companies to avoid the normal rates of stamp duty.

So if a company buys the property then tax it as though it was purchased as an individual. That solves that one, next!!

I thought this was all to do with a few high end transactions on which developers avoided SDLT.

So 'unearned wealth' should be 'captured'? That means that the wealth I have earned and saved (having paid my share of taxes on it) should not go to my undeserving children - instead it should be appropriated by the government to be distributed to such deserving groups as MPs to cover outrageously generous pensions and expenses; child benefit for eastern european kids who are not even resident in UK; poor Indian kids who are starving because their government would sooner spend tens of billions a year on nuclear and other weapons than on the welfare of their own people ......etc,etc,etc

Another reason to spend rather than save or to emigrate on retirement.

It is a pity that Nick Clod, sorry I mean Clegg; did something to create wealth and not pretend to rap the knuckles of those who have it.

@ Kevin Murphy

"Another reason to spend rather than save or to emigrate on retirement."

Yes it is. Unfortunately your comment is spot on. Those who can get out will, whilst the leeches and parasites flourish, as will the "social services industry" that helps them with their "rights". Just imagine what it is going to be like after the next election, when the paper shuffling civil servants will take their revenge.

If you're going to tax at the high end, wealth taxes tend to be preferable to income tax as the latter has a more direct or immediate impact on incentives.

Obviously, longer-term, one can structure one's affairs to avoid these things.

What all these people bleating in the West End on Saturday, and all the people who try to cleverly structure taxes to marginally reduce their economic impact, still cannot face is the simple truth that taxes are far too high and uncompetitive in a world where technology will aid migration of capital...It will also pay to avoid taxes until the rates become a lot more acceptable.

A longer term strategy has to be based around shrinking the size of the State and reductions in the cushy lives of half the people who were marching Saturday.

Good comments from man in black. as for some of the others, Wow. makes Norman Tebbit look like a lefty. 50p tax isn't right (52p) if you include NI and public sector is too big, see excellent section in last weeks Economist for an excellent inteleectual debate on this. public sector has to reform, but there are also good people there struggling to make ends meet so let's have some balance.