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Cough *Yeah, right* Cough

nothing to do with off loading before possible rises in CGT then …

The fact that it cost those who wanted to test the value of their home in the market were deterred. It is very handy for all those second home owners trying to flog the place before the CGT hits them.

i believe a flat rate tax system would be better set at a max of 20% (and 20% is the max on any tax, paye, ni, vat, cgt, any other tax), it would stop all this crap with pensions, CGT etc etc only tax thresholds would/could be played with

but a tapered system of CGT, at this time, would be better
1 year or less 50% CGT
2 years or less 40% CGT
3 years or less 30% CGT
4 years or less 20% CGT
5 years or less 10% CGT
5 years or more 'no' CGT

just my thoughts …

You have completely ignored the fact that capital gains are what got this country into such a mess in the first place. Look at all the people fiddling the buy to let market to make free capital gains at the expense of every other tax payer. When the come to sell they flip their main residence like an MP, then sell it as their main residence and pay no CGT. All this does is drive property prices up and acts as a additional tax on the young trying to get on the property ladder. Tapering is just another scam to reduce its impact. By having it at lower rate you just encourage more fiddling to get things treated as a capital gain rather than as an income.

Pension funds could be exempted on retained gains, so that will end that problem. Businesses have roll over relief so if you reinvest in another business you also do not pay it. Other than that it should be taxed at the highest rate possible, as much of the capital gains have been made as a result of excessive liquidity anyway. There are perfectly legal ways of avoiding and that is to sell it at cost price to a relative. Though all that does is mean that when they sell they have tax to pay on it.

i did state in my reply 'at this time'
so a time limit for any tapered relieve could be phased out, lets say, over 5 years …

Why wait when as a nation we need the money now. Also it will hit those who benefited most from capital gains in the past and are also are in a position to pay it. They will have just sold something to accrue that gain. Wouldn't this be preferable to an increase in VAT?

one has to allow for the movement and sale of these assets, so that they can be tracked
also for the ones that placed their money into long term investment for retirement can recoup and reinvest long term

its a catch 22 some will win some will lose but we will all gain in the longer run/view …

The movements and sale are already tracked by the land registry. Those that used property to fund their retirements are fools and really need to get out before the next stage of the property collapse. The US has around 15% to fall and the UK about 30% but feel sorry for those in Australia, property is overvalued by about 60%. The property market has been manipulated for the last 30 years and has grown out of all reality because of cheap lending and lousy lending practices. Far too many have become dependant on property values growing beyond any connection with reality. It was easy to get a good return if you were willing to lever your involvement to the hilt and lie to avoid CGT. Plus with poor stock market returns it seemed easy money.

As a long term investment it has only kept pace with earnings because that is how it has been financed. Though in recent years the lax mortgage standards meant that you had to borrow more and more on the same salary. In the US where wages have been stagnant for nearly 10 years the property bubble has grown way out of alignment with incomes. Incomes here may not have done as well either and so the property bubble was bound to collapse spectacularly one day. It still has some way to fall. The 15% drop in 2009 is not enough to bring it into line with wages.

The UK prices won't crash purely because of supply and demand. The population is going up faster than the houses that accomodate them. Sure mortage prices will stop them from shooting up in years to come, but the high demand will stop them from crashing. They may go up and down a bit, but not much.

Well you have not factored in the up to 700 000 who will lose their jobs next year. Subtract possibly a half a million EU immigrants who return home, that will reduce a lot of demand. Many governments will start slashing the deficit too early which could add a couple of million more unemployed as export opportunities dry up. That is what is spooking stock markets at the moment. If too many countries start austerity programs they wonder where the growth will come from.

Then there is the impact of the sovereign debt crisis. That could add more than a couple of per cent to interest rates and more if things are handled badly which they will be, not necessarily by the UK but by someone. Since many cannot afford even a slight increase in interest rates then these will be foreclosed sooner or later. Then those banks that had sent foreclosure notices but held back enforcing because of the rising prices may decide to carry them out. That is the situation in the US so see a further drop there which could spook banks here.

Then you have to include the huge de-leveraging of UK private consumers, that will take billions out of potential buying power. That will take as long as a decade to do unless of course people go bankrupt. Companies are concentrating on debt reduction so there will be few growth opportunities. So we will have a decade or even longer of austerity where house prices will slowly drop or one where they plunge. Overall it is not a pretty picture but not as bad as Ireland where property is still 24% overvalued to drop and their economy is collapsing and had since mid 2007 and has only had one quarter of growth in three years. Ireland's budget deficit was 17.9% in 2009, expected to be 14.6% this year and 15.1% next year, and by the end of next year the debt will be 109% of GDP. We are still a long way from being in that position but our government are not making necessarily the right decisions to keep demand and employment high.