"Oliver Keating" wrote in message
...

"Mikael Armstrong" wrote in message
...
"Cast_Iron" wrote in message
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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.

It is the lack of supply which will have driven prices up. Lets face it, out
of teh total population, very few people have 2nd homes, so you would not
have to let many new homes to be built to offset the effect in the areas
concerned. Lets allow people to build a few more houses in the areas people
actually want to live in, rather than proposing more construction in the
areas already filled to the brim.

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.

And so what? They already pay the petrol tax, they will have paid stamp duty
buying the house (another unfair tax), and no doubt they will be high
earners paying fair amounts of income tax too.

Many people owning 2nd homes probably also spend a reasonable amount in the
local area where they travel to at the weekends, and perhaps will have
employed local people to renovate the houses if needed. Wealth and properity
comes from people doing business, not from taxes.


Mikael