What a strange world the property world is! There has been so much chat about increases in capital gains tax the people are listing their properties for sale and somehow it has dragged prices up!?
How can that be? What is causing it? Is the movement in mortgage rates are giving the market a boost despite the suggestion of increased taxes?
As taxes are the theme here what could the changes look like? Well the last Labour government actually introduced a lot of pretty decent reliefs. Business owners got the better ones but it was Alastair Darling in 2008 that reduced CGT on rest properties to 18%.
He did this by removing the relief that reduced a gain the longer an asset had been held (taper relief) and overall we had a simpler and generally lower rate of CGT.
If rumours are to be believed we will see CGT increasing to possibly match income tax rates. If this is done without introducing something to reflect inflation though we’ll all be literally paying tax on inflationary rises. THat’s not good news for anyone!