Sunday, December 11, 2005

An Englishman's home is his tax liability

Why should anyone who refuses to let a Valuation Office inspector into their home be fined £500 and given a criminal record when anyone else needing to enter a property requires a warrant? The data collected by the inspectors will also be used by the Inland Revenue "for calculating capital gains and inheritance tax".

Which significant aspect of a property such as the "number of bedrooms, large gardens and nice views" are not already captured when a property is sold and already recorded by the Land Registry?

7 comments:

chris said...

New Labour seems to forget that there is already a measure for the number of bedrooms, garden, plus all the intangibles that they want to tax separately. The price. But like good little socialists why tax something once when you can tax it twice?

Snafu said...

Chris, why use the market to determined the value of the additional features when you can employ a couple of thousand additional civil servants to perform the same task far more inefficiently!?!

wonkotsane said...

According to a Commons Hansard form last month, the Valuation Office doesn't have the power to fine residents who refuse entry to Valuation Officers.

Whether they do or not, I have a plan.

Anonymous said...

Not giving your name might be a plan NOW, but by 2010, the government thinks it will have compulsory ID cards in place which it will be an offense not to produce to any tin-pot nazi official on demand.........

wonkotsane said...

And it all turns out to be a lie from the BBC. Uncle Tony's been leaning on people methinks.

Snafu said...

Wonko,

thanks for the correction. Can we look forward to a correction by the BBC?

wonkotsane said...

It appears that they can actually do it. An Englishman's Castle has done some more digging.