Talk of scrapping stamp duty and replacing it with a sellers\u2019 tax, as well as rebanding council tax, would prove to be an uphill struggle for the government.<\/p>\n
That is according to James Nation (pictured)<\/em>, managing director of UK politics at consultant Forefront Advisors, who was formerly a special advisor to Rishi Sunak as Chancellor before becoming deputy head of the Number 10 Policy Unit.<\/p>\n Nation said: \u201cThe revenue foregone from stamp duty in the early years would be a problem and I think that sort of full-scale tax reform is disruptive. It is a bit \u2018novel and contentious\u2019 to use Treasury language.\u201d<\/p>\n Charging capital gains taxes on main residences above a certain price could also prove unpopular, he warned.<\/p>\n Nation added: \u201cI think it\u2019s very tricky. I see this as similar to how the British public think about inheritance tax. It is uniformly unpopular even though the vast majority of the public won\u2019t qualify and that\u2019s because of the principle.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d be saying to someone that in theory, if you improve the state of your property, there is a world in which the taxman would be able to come and take away some of that gain. That is a hard political sell.\u201d<\/p>\n \t <\/p>\n However, he believes charging National Insurance on rental income fits the philosophy of individuals like Torsten Bell, the former chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, who is helping to draft the Budget.<\/p>\n Instead of reinventing the wheel, he reckons an easier sell would be revaluing properties in higher council tax bands.<\/p>\n Nation said: \u201cThe pull towards the (tax) status quo gets stronger, the weaker you feel. This is not a confident government that\u2019s just won a majority coming in with their first budget.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a government that I\u2019m sure will have to do some quite big things simply because of the arithmetic, but also just needs this budget to go well.<\/p>\n \u201cIt means the scope for bolder, riskier, more radical options is slightly diminished. We will find out how diminished in nine weeks\u2019 time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Talk of scrapping stamp duty and replacing it with a sellers\u2019 tax, as well as rebanding council tax, would prove to be an uphill struggle for the government. That is according to James Nation (pictured), managing director of UK politics at consultant Forefront Advisors, who was formerly a special advisor to Rishi Sunak as Chancellor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-second-home"],"yoast_head":"\n