General Election sums that don't add up

Just when you thought the General Election couldn’t get any duller, along comes a lively little spat to take our minds off all those family-friendly policies, saving the NHS, supporting our schools, the green agenda and … whoops, nearly nodded off there.

So hurrah to Zoopla for wading in to say that the Lib Dems have got their sums hopelessly wrong on the mansion tax.

How come? Well, the Lib Dems have calculated that the tax of 1% on houses worth over £2m would net them £1.7bn.

But Zoopla has done what it calls its own detailed analysis – the site lists every property in the UK, not just those that are on the market, which may come as a surprise to some –  and reckons it will raise £1.2bn.

Indeed, Zoopla is remarkably specific: the proposed mansion tax would affect just 38,500 home-owners – or 0.15% of the total.

Almost all – 90% – would be in London and the south-east, while an incredible 24% of the total national take from mansion tax would come from just one borough, Kensington & Chelsea, where 8,000 residents would be hit.

According to Zoopla, those having to pay the mansion tax would contribute an extra £32,270 a year to the Exchequer, with those at the threshold paying £20,000.

Now, EAT’s not much good at sums, but even we can work out that 1% of £2m is £20,000.

Unfortunately, that’s not what the Lib Dem manifesto says: the mansion tax will be paid on the value of the property ABOVE the £2m level.

“Zoopla’s figures are a completely nonsense,” housing analyst Henry Pryor told EAT. “The Lib Dems believe there are 70–80,000, not the 38,500 Zoopla has dreamt up.

“The Valuation Office estimates that there are 250,000 homes worth over £1m, and houses in Band H – worth over £320,000 – for council tax purposes number 127,000, of which 57,000 are in London.”

Intrigued, we asked Zoopla how they did their sums. “We list every property in the country,” said a spokesman. “It is all about Zoopla having the most complete property database possible.”

He added: “The figure for the 38,500 homes is calculated from the proportion of homes worth over £2m on Zoopla, and extrapolated to include all UK properties.”

But Pryor was adamant the sums don’t add up: “I reckon that a mansion tax would work out at an average £12,270, not £32,270,” he said.  “But in any case, Zoopla have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.”