The return of the mansion tax

If you thought the Conservatives' election victory meant the death of the mansion tax, think again, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

With Labour out of the picture for four years, you might think that you are safe from the mansion tax. Think again. The Conservative Party ruled out raising VAT, national insurance and income tax just before the election. But, if they want to keep looking serious about dealing with the UK's debt, they're going to be looking for another way to raise some extra cash. And the obvious place to look? Property and high-end property in particular.

So what could happen? Baker Tilly has looked at some of the options. The first and most obvious is capital gains tax (CGT). The principal private residence relief (PPR) on CGT remains unlimited.It doesn't matter how big your house,or how much you make on it inhow short a time, the gains are tax free. We've been arguing for some years now for stamp duty to be abolished in favour of a low, inflation-linked CGT charge on all primary property profits.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.