Nick Clegg explains changes to the “Mansion Tax”
Speaking on this morning’s Today programme on Radio 4, Liberal Democrat Leader, Nick Clegg described changes to the proposed “mansion tax” that the Liberal Democrats would levy to fund an increase in the threshold at which people start paying tax.
When the proposals were first made at the Liberal Democrat conference in September, the tax was to proposed for homes worth over £1 million, but today the party are set to announce that it will now apply only to those worth over £2 million.
“This is the way that policies work, we established a principle, Both Vince (Cable) and I launched this plan at our party conference, subsequently we looked at it, we refined it, we fleshed it out.
“Actually our change increases the value of the mansion tax, it actually increases the amount of money that you would generate because not only are we doubling it to £2m, we’re doubling the levy from 1/2%to 1%,”.
Mr Clegg claims the tax proposals will make a fairer tax system by taking lower-paid workers out of tax altogether. He said the lower-paid had been “squeezed and strangled by an unfair tax system for far far too long.”
“I don’t think anyone can dispute the fact that a 1% levy on the value of properties over £2m is exactly what it says on the tin, it’s asking people in very very large houses, a tiny fraction of the total … to pay some more money to give a break to hard-pressed tax payers at the lower end.”
The levy is expected to raise about £1.7 billion a year, similar to the amount of tax taken under the previous lower tax threshold.
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