How to fix a problem like the mansion tax

Deborah Orr in the Guardian rightly attacks the issue of council tax on mansions - or the lack of a fair distribution of tax burden yet again. The argument is simple - whcy should someone who buys a £1m or more proprty still only pay a paltry £1500 or so like the family not far away in a perfectly ordinary semi or even terraced house they have extended to fit their family

Cannot be right can it? But of course the vested interests all love the system - even Joan Bakewell claims (in the Torygraph) it would be unfair to tax her on the current value of her home - £4m - when she only paid £12,000 for it 48 years ago. I can tell her why it is not unfair - because everything else, all costs including her earnings, have soared so it IS the current value of her property that is relevant, not its happenstance historic value. So shut up, put up or let a bit for rent to pay the bill Joannie!

But the chance of a proper revaluation is nil - far too risky for dodgy Dave. Even so it is easy to fix (as if!) - scrap current council tax and replace with a 1 per cent of last registered valuation tax using Land Registry data. Thus a 100k house pays 1k (rate rebate as now for less well off); 500k house pays 5k - up fair bit; 1m mansion pays 10k and so on until the unlucky pauper struggling to get by in a 10M palace has to pay 100k per annum. It would make Buck house a bit steep but heigh ho - HMQ could always offshore the entire family business and pay sweet FA like so many of her chums.

And even unlucky sad long term residents like poor Joan Bakewell would only pay 120 quid which would get her off our backs! It could even be used to control maximum rents - government could set this at five times the property tax. Work it out - it fits current pricing which tells us something!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/09/deborah-orr-mansion-tax-opposition#start-of-comments

How to lose £800 million by paying it to yourself....

If I have got this straight it works like this: the Royal Bank of Scotland has lost over £800million this year. But if it were not paying its staff a bonus of over £800million it would be able to break even. I think that's it. So Herr Hester demonstrates that he puts bonuses above balance sheet. He determines to reward his RBS colleagues for maintaining their unblemished record for losing money. He does not give a fig for his shareholders, especially as they are us, the taxpayers (who also pick up the bill for the bank's Grecian adventure).
If cutting their bonuses and their pay actually would send these bankers packing it would be a very good thing. I am sure there are plenty of us out here who would like a shot at running a bank instead of ruining it.
You couldn't make it up. And nobody, especially dodgy Dave and goofy George do anything about it. Would the last person to leave this sceptic isle feel their way to the light switch and turn it to off. Thank you.