A radical MP addressing an event called Socialism in the Suburbs has called for yet more taxation on landlords.
Chris Honchcliff was elected last year as a Labour MP but sits as an independent after having the Labour whip removed for refusing to back welfare reforms.
According to local media in Hertford he told the meeting it would be “very welcome to see national insurance charged on rental income to balance the weighting of tax in our taxation system between salaried earnings and what landlords are able to earn”.
He is quoted by the Royston Crow publication as saying: “One thing you can’t move is a house, and, as socialists, I think we should always be thinking not just about the overall aggregate amount of housing but how it is distributed.
“I think a really effective wealth tax would be a wealth tax on people who own more than one property, and you could have it as a staircase tax so that the more properties you own, the higher the percentage of the value of those properties you have to pay.”
And he said more pressure on landlords would help the overall housing crisis.
Referring to the Government’s target of building 1.5m homes in five years, he said: “If you really want to flood the market, make the people who own loads and loads of properties sell up, then you’ll have a flooded market.
“With taxation, you can force them to do that in a way that developers are never going to build out at that speed, and then we can put some of our affordable housing programme towards buying that up and making those properties council housing again.”
This article is taken from Landlord Today