Imagine you are a parent in one of the more deprived areas of Oldham. You might think that a decent education is the best way for your children to do well in their lives. You might know that all of the local schools are pretty bad. You might know that only about 1% of children around you reach EBacc standards, the minimum level necessary to get to a good university.
Depressing stuff. But then you hear about a charismatic Muslim British army officer who is planning to set up a brand new Free School; a school where the head of studies is a former Tornado pilot who has also been Head of Science at three independent schools. A school where all teachers will have served at a senior rank in the British Armed Services. A school where one of the founders has been described by Michael Gove as the man “who has done more than anyone living in the fight against illiteracy in this country”.
You can see the political attractions of the Mansion Tax. Its advocates claim that it is a tax that would be paid by a handful of very rich people who own vast properties. And they say it would bring in lots of money, money that is of course desperately needed by the Treasury.
These claims are false. And, worse, we should recognise that proposals for a Mansion Tax are profoundly un-conservative – and it should be a source of deep embarrassment to the Conservative part of this administration that proposals for such a tax have even been considered.
To understand how a Mansion Tax would work, the Centre for Policy Studies asked the leading estate agents, Savills, to look through their deal book so that we can understand who really would be affected by a Mansion Tax. The answers are revealing, as we show in our paper published today Taxing Mansions: the taxation of high value residential property.
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