Election Letters - ‘Mansion Tax’ punitive

Published: 29 April, 2010

• CAN Ed Fordham, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn let us know if he supports his party’s proposed Mansion Tax, which would severely damage some of the communities he wants to  represent.
I live in Hampstead, where many houses are worth more than £2million, the Mansion Tax threshold. In my own area, houses sell for £4m or more. 
The tax is to be 1 per cent of the value over £2m. This means a punitive £20,000 or more per year, which would have to be paid out of already-taxed income.
Hundreds of the older residents in this constituency have valuable houses not because they are very rich but because they have lived here a long time and house prices have undergone a huge inflation. 
Many are retired people on modest pensions. They simply cannot pay an extra £20,000 a year out of their income.
So either they will have to sell their homes or take out mortgages year after year.
If an older person lives another 15 years and has to pay a Mansion Tax of £20,000 a year, a debt of £300,000 plus interest would pile up against their home. In practice, the families of long-term residents would be driven out of their homes and replaced by people who could pay this Lib Dem tax, like Russian oligarchs, non-doms and investment bankers.
Is this what Ed Fordham wants?
RUPERT SHELDRAKE
Willow Road, NW3