Treble council tax for richest, says Momentum

Momentum, the group behind Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to the top of Labour, is backing a policy to treble council tax to more than £10,000 a year for people living in the largest homes. Far-left activists in Bristol are proposing the 200 per cent increase to stop cuts to council services.

THE group behind Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to the top of Labour is backing a policy to treble council tax to more than £10,000 a year for people living in the largest homes.

Far-left activists in Bristol are proposing to the Labour-run council that it increases council tax for the largest homes by 200 per cent to stop cuts to services.

The council tax changes could raise £25.8million if the owners of the top eight per cent of homes – around 15,266 households – paid the new charge. This would see those living in the most expensive ‘band H’ properties pay almost £10,800 a year, compared to the current £3,599.50 bill.

The changes would affect band H properties, which are defined as being worth more than £320,000 in 1991 when the homes were last valued for council tax purposes.

The idea is one of a number of suggestions from Momentum, the Leftwing group with over 200,000 supporters, including a rise in parking costs, the introduction of a congestion charge and the possibility of a tax on tourists.

According to the Bristol Post, Momentum’s plans say: “The essence of an anti-austerity, progressive policy agenda is to focus on defending services by raising income from those most able to afford it – the wealthiest in our cities – to cover the budget deficit, while at the same time putting significant public and political pressure on the Tory government to restore local government funding to at least 2015 levels for the duration of the current parliament.”

Andrew Bridgen, the Conservative MP, said: “It is just a taste of things to come if Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-left Labour policies were enacted nationally.

“Mr Corbyn’s problem will be he will soon run out of rich people to fund his prolific spending spree if he becomes Prime Minister. Mr Corbyn is still trying to make poor people richer, while rich people poorer – which has never worked anywhere.”

A Labour spokesman declined to comment. Labour’s manifesto at the last general election contained plans for a Land Value Tax to replace council tax, which would hit people with gardens the hardest.

The manifesto held no detail of how the tax would be applied, but the Conservatives claimed tax on the average family home would go up from £1,185 to £3,837 per year, an increase of £2,651 or 224 per cent.

Opponents of the tax say it would cause house prices to plummet, putting home owners at risk of negative equity and forcing families to sell off their gardens to developers to lessen their tax burden.