Top QC says unjustified mansion tax lacks logic

One of Britain's leading barristers says any original justification for a so-called mansion tax on properties valued at £2m-plus has now simply disappeared.

Robert Rhodes QC, one of the country's most respected silks, says the original justification put forward by the Labour Party was that the mansion tax was a retaliation for the coalition government's reduction in the top income tax rate from 50p to 45p.

"But earlier this year Ed Balls [shadow chancellor] said that a future Labour government would reinstate the 50p top tax rate until the public spending deficit was cleared. The original claimed justification for the mansion tax has thus disappeared" Rhodes says in a letter to the Financial Times.

Rhodes says there are three other arguments against the tax as proposed by Labour, which wants it imposed on homes at £2m or more, accompanied by an annual charge.

One argument is that such high-value residential purchases are already highly taxed through stamp duty; another is that older owners who may have lived in a property for several decades may not have large incomes from which they can pay the tax.

The final argument, says Rhodes, is that the proposal simply "lacks logic". This is because someone could own several homes worth well over £2m combined but so long as no single property is valued at over £2m, no mansion tax is applicable.