Charlie Elphicke – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlie Elphicke on 2014-03-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department made before the 2012 Budget of the number of properties valued at more than (a) £2 million and (b) £5 million.

David Gauke

The number of residential properties in the UK valued at more than £2 million was estimated before Budget 2012 to be around 55,000.

Before Budget 2012, an assessment of the average annual payment required from each property above £2 million in order to raise a net sum of £2 billion per annum was not made.

On 1 July 2013, during Report stage of the Finance Bill, I referred to “a simple calculation arrived at by dividing £2 billion by 55,000 (an internal HMRC estimate of the number of properties valued at over £2 million) to give a ‘mean’ average of £36,000.”

A so-called mansion tax would depress stamp duty land tax and inheritance tax yields. The exact impact would be dependent on the rates and bands chosen.