Wednesday 12 September 2012

Could radical tax reform solve housing problems? - Property - The Independent

Could radical tax reform solve housing problems? - Property - The Independent

House price inflation needs to be halted by a revaluation of tax bands to reflect actual house prices, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
The social policy research charity argues that revaluing Council Tax would also make the system fairer as currently people in cheaper houses pay a higher proportion of Council Tax than people living in expensive ones.
Their estimates suggest 3.7 million households are worse off as a result of the failure to revalue Council Tax because households would have moved down bands. The charity says that over time, these changes would ease the transition to a National Property Tax, which could play a key role in stabilising the market and ending boom and bust cycles.
The JRF proposes various additional measures including:
* an insurance partnership scheme in which borrowers, lenders and the Government make a contribution to a pooled fund to provide a safety net for homeowners struggling with mortgage costs
* increasing the availability of social rented homes and reforming the private rented sector to give renters more security
* additional investment in meeting housing supply needs

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