Home Property Vince Cable: "Let’s get on with” bringing in a mansion tax

Vince Cable: "Let’s get on with” bringing in a mansion tax

by Asa
24th Sep 12 1:20 pm

Business secretary tells LibDems that high-value properties should be subject to “proper taxation”  

Business secretary Vince Cable has told LibDems that the rich should be subject to a high-value property tax.

Speaking this afternoon at the Liberal Democrat conference, Cable told delegates that it was a “core Lib Dem policy”.

“[It would be] a first step to the proper taxation of wealth and land. It horrifies the Tory backwoodsmen but it is popular and right. The super-rich can’t move their chateaux to Monaco or Switzerland so let’s get on with it and tax them here” he added.

He quipped that he would have gone for a “Hollande-style assault on top incomes”, but felt higher income tax rates would be counter-productive.

In an aside aimed at chief whip Andrew Mitchell and his altercation at the gates of Downing Street, Cable added that “I’ve been told jokes about social class aren’t good for the coalition, but as a pleb I couldn’t resist it.”

Cable called for the government to crack down “hard” on tax evasion and “on abusive tax avoidance”.

“No one keeps their cash in tax havens for the quality of investment advice; these are sunny places for shady people” he added.

Cable also announced the creation of a British Business Bank, as a vehicle for greater lending to small businesses.

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