Uk Mansion tax. I have no problems with this, would you?

We pay 1% accessed value for property tax in northern indiana.
So a three million dollar house will be taxed at thirty thousand.
That is the house tax only, land is taxed differently.

Agreed but it is not even a heavy burden?

I have no wish to punish the sucessfull but the more you earn the greater your contribution should be.

a reply to: stargatetravels

a reply to: nonspecific

To me, the ultimate test of right and wrong is the Golden Rule. Basically, would you want it done to you?

Folks will say, "The rich should bear the heaviest burden". What if it were you? Would you want to bear the heaviest burden simply because you were more willing to sacrifice time with your family, and sacrifice all that leisure time missed because you don't get a vacation while you are building empires and what not....would you want to see those personal sacrifices just given over to your government because people who never made those sacrifices think you have too much?

I am not wealthy. I am in what used to be known as the middle class. Not many of us left in the middle class anymore, thats for sure. But I bristle at the notion that if i choose to eschew social and leisure aspects of my life so that I can work, that someone else can decide to come and take some of what I traded all the "fun" in my life for.

Because I will tell you one thing for sure: "family" doesn't mix with having 18 hour workdays. And "vaction" is impossible when you are always dealing with calls and emails. People trade something to have wealth. Unless they are born into it. But even then, there are trades. For me, ill hug my son and kiss my wife, and be happy I have that instead of a big old pile of money. Because I made my choice, too.

Better yet, make the rich house the homeless. I'm sure there's a lot of homeless people including children in the greater London area. You've got 5 bedrooms in the main house, two more in the cottage. Let's say you can get four people in each bedroom, plus four more in every one of those 'drawing' rooms, etc., that no one ever uses except to impress their equally rich scumbag friends at Christmastime.

You could easily house 40 people in that place and you'd need the labor they could provide to actually take care of that gorgeous monstrosity. Train them as gardeners, horsemen, electricians, plumbers, cooks, cleaners, educators, etc. Add more housing to all that acreage and you could easily house over 1000 people...

Win-win, except for the snobs that think this kind of housing for a few people, all knocking around all alone in those dozens of rooms, is something worth working their whole lives for (and probably at something not all that legal, eh?)

I've had the same thought about the White House; after all, it's 'the people's house', right?

All the homeless should just move in to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue until they're taken care of in some other way, and don't tell me the government hasn't got the money.

1: they make the money up out of thin air.
2: they have plenty of money for bombs, aircraft carriers, Pentagon excess of all kinds, except of course for VA benefits...

a reply to: nonspecific
The phrase "mansion tax" is deliberately misleading.
House prices in London are such that it won't be long before broom cupboards reach that price-range.
You'll see fireworks when the Londoners arrive on this thread.

I agree with you sentiment, as I stated earlier I have no wish to punish those who are doing well and have worked to earn money and accumalate wealth.

For more perspective if you were to mortgage a 2 million pound house over 25 years on a repayment deal then monthly payments would be around £9,000.

The tax would be around £250 per month.

If you can afford 9 grand a month in mortgage payments then £250 can not or should not be a problem.

There was a famous person over here kicking up a fuss over the proposal with an estimated worth of 11 million?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I agree and that's one of the reasons i started the thread.

A few years ago when I still lived in the midlands a friend of mine sold her 2 bed flat in London and bought a detached 6 bed manor house and banked the change.

I still stand by the idea though.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Instead of taxing MORE maybe the government should look at ways to be more efficient.


The £15 Billion that wasted on the futile war on drugs?

The £14 billion we piss away on foreign aid (I will note I don't disagree with it in principle but FFS! WE FECKING GIVE HALF OF IT TO PLACES LIKE CHINA AND FREAKING INDIA! Least make sure it goes to places that actually need it!)

The Billion in unpaid taxes maybe?

Then maybe look at little things like the subsided bars and pubs in parliament?

Massive pay cuts for the 6 figure jobsworths that sit in counsel offices doing nothing?

The £55 million a day pissed away in the EU?

The thousands of jobsworths that are wasting time and money in the NHS?


I mean there a lot of saving we could make here.

Agreed in full but that's just not going to happen is it?

I think that although your priciples are sound you are asking a little too much of our overlords

a reply to: crazyewok

a reply to: nonspecific

Jesus. I thought you said $250k per month! Ok $250 per month is much more reasonable (well, I know pounds are worth more than dollars, but I don't have a nifty pound sign on my keyboard). I pay $130 per month on a house that isn't even worth $60k. $250 per month for a millionaire is nothing. Here in my town, the same house would probably cost $20k per month in property taxes even with a homestead deferment.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan


I am not wealthy. I am in what used to be known as the middle class. Not many of us left in the middle class anymore, thats for sure.

Thats the problem......

People would be a lot more happy if the middle class was reborn and growing again.

Its the political and super rich that raped the middle classes and are attacking it.


Bring the middle class back and people would settle down!

People should have to be doomed to 12 hour work days are minimum wage for the rest of there lives cause a bunch of banker and political scum have run off with all the money.

originally posted by: seeker1963

originally posted by: CharlieSpeirs
a reply to: nonspecific

I'm for it pal.


Only people against it so far have been celebrities and politicians.

No surprise there imo.

Which is ironic, being that they are the ones telling everyone else we need to lower our carbon foot print!

Exactly.

It pisses me off to know end to hearing bob freaking geldof and Paul bloody McCartney telling me to be more "green" and make sacrifices while they fly round the world on private jets and drive cars that do gallons to the mile rather than miles to the gallon!

ATS having issues... post is below.

Why is my post cut off?
Hmmmm

I'll try again

originally posted by: [post=18679230]bigfatfurrytexan

To me, the ultimate test of right and wrong is the Golden Rule. Basically, would you want it done to you?

Folks will say, "The rich should bear the heaviest burden". What if it were you? Would you want to bear the heaviest burden

Yes...I absolutely would.. because that's the way a fair and decent society should be.
Those with the most, pay the most.

simply because you were more willing to sacrifice time with your family, and sacrifice all that leisure time missed because you don't get a vacation while you are building empires and what not....

We're talking about a millionaires tax here, a "mansion tax"
We're not talking about every grafter who works hard to get ahead.

would you want to see those personal sacrifices just given over to your government because people who never made those sacrifices think you have too much?

Oh this old chestnut... thrown out as an insult to the poor basically.
"If you could be bothered to work hard and make sacrifices,you too could be a millionaire and live in a mansion and be the 1%"

It's bollocks.

Not everyone can or will be rich and very little of it is to do with whether "they could be bothered" or not.
There are people who work 3 and 4 jobs, never see their kids, never have a holiday/vacation... Just to make ends meet and even then, they're always falling behind.

The sheer arrogance and nastiness of that way of thinking just amazes me.


Yes... everyone pays taxes... everyone chips in but those with the most, pay the most.
It's really quite simple.

a reply to: blupblup

Think back on your life. Lets say you have a wife and kids. Now imagine that you instead traded that wife and kids for a career. What is the value of that sacrifice? The value of all those years of happiness and reward that you get from a family?

Or that trip you made to the beach with the wife. The one where all your memories were made. What are those memories worth? Do they have a value, or are they considered "priceless"?

To me, a decent society recognizes that all people have hardships. And that no one persons hardship is any more severe than anothers. A decent society encourages others to give, but doesn't mandate it. Especially when the real problem isn't that someone else has too much money. But rather, the government you elect are atrocious stewards of the money already given to them.

Like I said: if a government wants to increase its tax base, it needs to do so by doing its job: improve the economic conditions of the citizenry so that taxes already being levied increase. Not by inventing new ways to tax people. Because in the end, what is being discussed here is mob mentality. It is the unwashed masses conspiring to take wealth from the top 5%.

a reply to: blupblup

Inferred meanings don't always hold. Me pointing out that the man I work for lost his family because they wouldn't play second fiddle to his desire to achieve....that has nothing to do with the poor being lazy. It has to do with everyone having choices to make as to how they will spend their time. Some folks build empires. Some folks build strong families. Some build huge walls of empty liquor bottles. We each have a choice as to how we spend our time.

But if we are putting value on how time is spent...i would say time spent in sacrifice of a family is time that has the greatest value, at least personally. While it may mean nothing to you or I that they sacrificed having a family....it means a lot to them. Or, at least it would to me.

Ill tell you the best way to improve the tax situation: make it so law makers have to pay 1% more in taxes than the next highest tax bracket.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Sounds to me like they just want to punish the rich for being financially successful.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
It is the unwashed masses conspiring to take wealth from the top 5%.

And a certain part of that 5% are directly responsible for taking wealth from the bottom 95% and destroying the middle classes. In fact its a 0.01% that has raped the 99.99% below it are not held accountable for that.

MAYBE if the big banks that have cause so much grief were held accountable the "unwashed masses" as you so arrogantly put would not be so bothered.

MAYBE if all the big corporations and CEO paid they bloody taxes and didn't get away with tax avoidance the "unwashed masses" would be less bothered with those few who did make there millions honestly through hard work?

MAYBE if hard work and effort DID in fact get you at least in the middle classed the "unwashed masses" would be more content to buckle down and work to improve there lot rather than disappear at the hopeless prospect of being a minimum wage slave living from pay check to pay check for the benefit of the super rich who can break laws, evade tax, bribe politicians and destroy economy's with impunity?

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: blupblup

Inferred meanings don't always hold. Me pointing out that the man I work for lost his family because they wouldn't play second fiddle to his desire to achieve....that has nothing to do with the poor being lazy. It has to do with everyone having choices to make as to how they will spend their time. Some folks build empires. Some folks build strong families. Some build huge walls of empty liquor bottles. We each have a choice as to how we spend our time.

But that not how it works anymore.

Hard work and sacrifices will get you as far as the middle classes if lucky.

Sure there are a few self made millionaires. People like Elon Musk are to be admired.

But most are legacy family who get there riches from exploiting others.

I understand that your reply is not to me but feel I must interject.

I have to respectfully object strongly to your post.

I have a wife and children. I do the right thing. I have stated that I do not have a problem with those who have strived to become wealthy and provide for there family and future.

I have to disagree that what is being discussed is "mob mentality" and although I may be "unwashed" I have no want to take from those who have achieved in life regardless of the percentage of the populace they may have attained.

I am somewhat saddened by your comments.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan