Sep 19 2007
Conference season
The Political Party Conference season is upon us once again. First up are the Liberal Democrats who are holding their conference in Brighton this week where Ming Campbell is trying to convince his party that he is the right man to lead them into the next General Election.
One interesting development that has come out in the small print of the Lib Dem’s latest tax plans is their support for European-style house price taxes. Such a new house price tax system was introduced in Northern Ireland in April by Labour Ministers and a 1% house price tax was also recommended by the Lib-Lab Scottish Executive in a report on town hall taxes last year. If introduced this system could mean typical bills of over 2,000 a year on families in York with the potential for regular revaluations to top it up. Ouch!
Back on the home front, I attended Elvington village Parish Council meeting last night. They have done a fantastic job in securing a vital local flood defence scheme for the village that without their hard work and the support of their current MP John Grogan would not have been achieved. I believe Parish Councils play a very important role in our local communities and should be supported by local Politicians as Mr Grogan has done in Elvington and if elected I certainly intend to carry on that work.
Julian, you’ll no doubt be pleased to learn that although the Liberal Democrats asked their Tax Commission last year to look at this kind of proposal (along with a range of others) they rejected it and the paper passed by this year’s Lib Dem conference proposes nothing of the kind.
It does propose scrapping council tax and reforming stamp duty to reduce the amount of tax paid on properties worth less than £500,000 though, so actually it looks a pretty good set of proposals for home owners.
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