suziewoozie
The value of a property has not in the majority of cases been paid for after tax. There was tax relief on the mortgage interest for starters and then the increase in value is not taxed at all - and tbats were most of the value is
Tax relief on mortgages was abolished years ago.
The idea that people are sitting on vast amounts of profit may be true in the SE, and is obviously the case for those who bought a while ago in London, or who got council houses at a discount, but in large parts of the country it is simply not the case.
For what it's worth, I would support taxing any profit (although it would need a complicated formula to work out what it means in real terms after interest rates and so on are factored in), but I think this obsession with housing profit deflects from the point I am trying to make.
Let's assume that someone has no house, but has jewellery that they bought with their earned income? Or antiques? Or anything of value? Why should they have to sell it to pay for social care when their taxes have paid into the NHS?
Who should decide what which of our possessions we can keep or pass to our children? Suppose I have my mother's old teddy (Woolworth's - not Steiff) and want my daughter to have it. Is that ok, or does someone else get to tell me that it should be sold if I need care? We might get a fiver for it that would pay for something. Is it just because most people's house is their most expensive asset that housing becomes the focus? The principle is surely the same in the case of the teddy?