"Mikael Armstrong" wrote in message
...
"Cast_Iron" wrote in message
...
Given the that the increased road congestion in Friday and Sunday
evenings
is caused by many people going and from to their country cottages for
the
weekend, isn't it time that second homes attracted a punative rate of
council tax?

An added bonus of this would be to free-up houses in rural and other
touristy areas that young people on local wages could afford to buy or
rent
who would then spend money in the local economy.



I can't say I have a second home, but why should a second home be heavily
taxed?

Because people who own 2 houses are clearly very rich, and the rich should
be targeted for tax for two reasons:

1) Social justice
2) It would actually be impossible to raise enough revenue if everyone was
taxed to the same %age because the rich provide a disproportionately large
chunk of revenue.

Second homes make very low demands upon local services. I would
suspect that even if you prevented anyone from owning a second home, it
would make little difference to the general housing market.

This is completely untrue. There are many examples in West England where the
popularity of second homes, particularly in scenic locations, has driven up
prices making it really hard for people with local jobs to find somewhere
affordable.

People travelling to their 2nd homes pay plenty of tax travelling to them.
I
would suspect most traffic though is caused by people seeing friends or
relatives, or travelling to/from their place of work for the week.

The thing is, most people with a 2nd home will travel there every weekend
without fail.

Mikael