Mansion tax - at a glance

The mooted "Mansion tax" is not to be confused with the new Annual Residential Property Tax (ARPT). Read this and then complete our 2 second Poll on the right.

The concept of a mansion tax is attributed to Vince Cable and the Liberal Democrats, however various other countries, such as France for example, have some form of wealth tax which includes taxing property.

The UK is about to introduce a property tax in the form of ARPT this will be payable by corporate owners of residential property. Mansion tax would apply to individual owners also.

In its original form the Mansion tax proposal was that all properties over £2 million pounds would attract an annual tax of 1%

  • This means if you own a property worth £2 million pounds you would pay tax of £20,000 a year.
  • Critics have said that the policy would hurt pensioners, according to statistics almost half or property worth over £2 million is owned by people who do not work for a living.
  • The Labour party are now backing mansion tax and calling for it to be introduced before the next election. 
  • A motion by Labour to introduce mansion tax went to the House of Commons yesterday: Conservatives and Liberal Democrats joined forces to defeat the measure by 63 votes.
Mansion tax is a proposed tax and should NOT to be confused with any of the new measures recently or being introduced for high value residential property. These are primarily aimed at taxing property owned by non-natural persons: