Age Action believes that the Government must protect older people on low incomes when framing the proposed property tax.
Any property tax must take into account the difficulties low income families would have with a purely value based tax. Age Action believes that any tax should be income based, rather than value based, to allow for people whose home has acquired a high market value that does not reflect their income or ability to pay. “It is grossly unfair to penalise people who bought moderately priced houses which the market now imputes a much higher value.”
Age Action also believes there should be a cap placed on the percentage value of a property that the Government is allowed to charge against that property. “This is to protect the property of older people having potentially three charges being levied against it, ie, the property tax, the Nursing Home Support Scheme Charge, and the proposed community care charge. Many low and medium income families have scrimped to buy their homes to pass onto their families, while paying very high income tax and they have a right not to have their sacrifice rendered meaningless.”
