"The new mansion tax announced by Rachel Reeves in last week's budget is estimated to affect around 165,000 property owners, and on current trends the British media is forecast to have interviewed every single one of them by the end of the year. How else to explain the chorus of squeals we've been exposed to from the impoverished victims of Esher and Pimlico, whose only crime was to own a house worth over 2m in an era of egregious wealth inequality?"
"We hear, for example, from Philippa in Kensington, who tells the Telegraph that the new council tax surcharge on her two small mews houses will wipe me out. We hear from Paul, who owns a 2.5m house in Cobham, who tells the same newspaper that the move has wreaked havoc with his retirement plans. We hear in the Times from a property investor called Mark in Wimbledon, whose 9.5m house has been on the market for over a year,"
The mansion tax announced by Rachel Reeves is expected to affect about 165,000 property owners. British media coverage has intensely focused on complaints from affluent homeowners across London and commuter towns. Individual accounts include a Kensington owner claiming a council tax surcharge will wipe her out, a Cobham homeowner saying the levy wrecks retirement plans, and a Wimbledon investor reporting almost no viewings for a high-value property. Tabloid coverage warns of elderly homeowners forced to sell and frames the levy as a back-door confiscation of family homes. Broadcast callers largely opposed the tax while some figures defended expensive houses as part of national appeal.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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