Hands off

摘要

Ashiver ran down the spine of Middle England this weekend as a Sunday newspaper reported a supposed plan to tax capital gains on homes. The story was quickly rebutted by the Treasury, but it raised suspicions that Gordon Brown has his eyes on Britain's golden nest-egg: owner-occupiers' property wealth. There are at least three reasons why the chancellor might like to raise more revenue from housing. First, he is chronically short of money. Figures released this week suggest that the government is likely to borrow ￡37 billion this financial year, ￡10 billion more than Mr Brown forecast in April. Second, the house-price boom has increased housing wealth by over ￡1 trillion in the last five years. Third, the Treasury has already discussed the merits of using taxes on housing to regulate consumer demand if Britain were to join the euro. It pointed out in June that "investment in housing is relatively lightly taxed compared to other investments".