Mirless report "Exemption from CGT on death should be ended"

An annual wealth tax (levied at the risk free rate of return times the rate of income tax) is a far better way to tax wealth, or less rigorously 1.5%
That would be a very high rate on property. If my million Euro house went up in value by €50k in a year I'd have to pay an extra €25k in tax or €15'750 at 1.5% on the new value of €1,050,000.
 
Yes, If your house was worth €1,050,000 you would have to pay €15,750 tax each year. People would stop hoarding housing. Use or move.

A high rate? I think that says more about the distorted housing market than anything else. 1.5% is not of itself high.

The price of houses would fall. The population density of housing would rise. Both positives for society.

There would be no CGT nor CAT both positives for the individual.
 
Yes, If your house was worth €1,050,000 you would have to pay €15,750 tax each year. People would stop hoarding housing. Use or move.

A high rate? I think that says more about the distorted housing market than anything else. 1.5% is not of itself high.

The price of houses would fall. The population density of housing would rise. Both positives for society.

There would be no CGT nor CAT both positives for the individual.
I agree with you, thanks for clarifying.
 
How would that help the housing market?
One of the biggest issues we have is that our average household size (number of people living in a property) is declining. That means we need more houses for the same amount of people. In 1991 it was 3.34 people per household. It's currently 2.75. That means we need 18% more housing units for the same number of people. In other words that statistic accounts for 360,000 housing units. At €250k per unit that's €90 billion.

Older people living longer and staying in their family home is a large driver in that statistic. Of course we'd need suitable places for them to trade down to in their local area for that to work. There's no point is looking to engineer an outcome which isn't available.
 
Yes, If your house was worth €1,050,000 you would have to pay €15,750 tax each year. People would stop hoarding housing. Use or move.
When domestic rates were either introduced or dramatically escalated in the early 1970s, owners avoided it by literally demolishing superfluous housing or systematically reducing them to an uninhabitable state. It meant inter alia the permanent loss of countless heritage properties.

Your proposal would be likely to have the same result.
 
Older people living longer and staying in their family home is a large driver in that statistic. Of course we'd need suitable places for them to trade down to in their local area for that to work. There's no point is looking to engineer an outcome which isn't available.
Well I'm glad someone else realizes that.

I don't know what type of housing is most in demand at present, but I suspect it is not 5 bedroom + properties.

In addition people who buy older houses might not always know what they are buying. It could be a money pit.
 
When domestic rates were either introduced or dramatically escalated in the early 1970s, owners avoided it by literally demolishing superfluous housing or systematically reducing them to an uninhabitable state. It meant inter alia the permanent loss of countless heritage properties.

Your proposal would be likely to have the same result.
How big an issue was that? Do you know what the numbers were?
I suspect a tax that was weighted in favour of the site value would mitigate that problem but of course that would be more complex to calculate.
 
In 2004, I had a planning application for replacing 2 4-bedroom houses in a Dublin suburb with more suitable 2/3-bedroom appts so that older people could downsize and live in the same area - blown out of the water completely.

What I learned from that was that the NIMBY brigade was well and truly in charge - and still are in most places.

So no traction in planning moving older people out of 4-beds into smaller units in the same area
 
How big an issue was that? Do you know what the numbers were?
No idea on either count. I was very young at the time. It appears in retrospect to have been common enough in the case of historic houses that are now recorded as having been demolished or abandoned around that time, but anecdotally seems to have been rife in the case of ordinary homes. Both of my grandparents' homes (where my parents respectively grew up) were dealt with likewise around that time, one demolished and the other converted to agricultural use.
I suspect a tax that was weighted in favour of the site value would mitigate that problem but of course that would be more complex to calculate.
It might mitigate a repeat to an extent in urban centres for example in places like Mountjoy Square that were badly run down in the 70s but a site tax won't work too well in that respect in the likes of Castle Saunderson, where the current site value is probably negative.
 
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