UK households in homes worth over £320,000 face council tax 'raid' from Labour

UK households in homes worth over £320,000 face council tax 'raid' from Labour
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People in homes worth over £320,000 face a council tax "raid" under the new Labour Party government. Labour's Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been urged to launch council tax raid on homes over £320,000 amid attempts to plug a multi-billion pound black hole left by the Tories.

Tax expert Dan Neidle is urging the Government to reform the system to ensure homeowners whose properties are worth over £2m pay more, suggesting a change could raise between £1bn and £5bn. Writing on the TPA website, he said: “It’s indefensible that an average property in Blackpool pays more council tax than a £100m penthouse in Knightsbridge.

“The obvious answer is to ‘uncap’ council tax so that it bears more relation to the value of the property – either by adding more bands or applying say 0.5 percent to all property value over £2m. The argument seems compelling for any government, and particularly a Labour government. And whilst Labour promised not to change the council tax bands, that was in the context of revaluation, not adding more bands at the top.”

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In the current system, all properties over £320,000 attract the same level of council tax. However, under Mr Neidle’s first proposal, there would be additional bands and higher valued properties would pay incrementally more.

Elliot Keck, of campaign group the TaxPayers’ Alliance, told the Telegraph newspaper this week: “Under no circumstances should taxpayers have to put up with yet another round of blanket rate rises. While there are reasonable discussions to be had about reforming the banding system, the result of any changes should be that residents overall pay less given the enormous pressures on household budgets.

“Local government should be focusing on boosting productivity and finding efficiencies, and not be holding out hope that they’ll be saved by yet another cash injection.”