Wednesday 28 May 2014

Tax Those House-Builders! Or Not?

So on the one hand you have a politician and sundry numpties saying that the cure for affordable housing is a large and confiscatory Capital Gains Tax on developers.

And on the other you have a Bill before Parliament admitting that taxation makes it difficult to supply cheap housing -- otherwise why would they have introduced a bill to exempt charities?

Can someone please resolve this contradiction?

[Hat tip Julian D.]

1 comment:

John Jones said...

The taxpayer subsidy that is Help to Buy has enabled UK Housebuilders to achieve record profit rises and increase their average selling roices by as much as 20% since it became availble. It is only right that these excessive profits now be subject to a windfall tax levy. Whether the money raised goes towards supplying "cheap housing" or reducingt he tax burden for the rest of us, it is surely better than going into the pockes of house builder's shareholders via increased special dividneds and to the already swelled bank accounts of the house builder's CEO's in the form of obscene bonuses.