Reeves needs to go big or go home at the Budget – starting with abolishing council tax

The Chancellor confirmed today she is “looking at tax” ahead of the Budget.

Around the last Budget, Ministers said they didn’t want to keep coming back for more on tax changes. The fact they’re gearing up to do so one year on means it’s now or never for Rachel Reeves to be bold on tax reform.

The Chancellor has to go big or go home – and the clearest place to start is property tax reform.

Calls have grown louder and louder in recent months to abolish our broken council tax and stamp duty systems. A wide range of voices from Labour MPs to academics to think tanks have piled in behind Fairer Share’s campaign to replace both taxes with one simple Proportional Property Tax based on the current value of a home.

Fairer Share analysis shows that our reforms would see 18 million households pay less tax, saving the average household £556 per year. There are few more effective ways to put cash quickly into many voters’ pockets, helping with the government’s central mission to raise living standards all over the UK.

The status quo cannot hold. As 13 Labour MPs recently wrote to the Chancellor, council tax and stamp duty are “deeply unfair, inefficient and outdated”. Council tax is based on property values from over 30 years ago. It creates a postcode lottery in which many lower-value homes are charged far more than higher-value ones, as bands have not kept pace with rising house prices.

The IFS agrees that a proportional property tax would be a “good end goal.” The leading living standards think tank Resolution Foundation recently called it “welcome” - agreeing council tax and stamp duty alike are “badly in need of reform”.

A PPT is also hugely popular with the public, with more people in every constituency in the country in favour than opposed. At a time when so many are struggling, it is a no-brainer.

Announcing a review of property taxes at the Budget would give Keir Starmer an answer to not only Kemi Badenoch’s stamp duty abolition pledge but also throw down the gauntlet to Nigel Farage. Economics, politics and good common sense demand it.

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Andrew Dixon is a private investor and founder of Fairer Share - the national campaign to reform both Stamp Duty and Council Tax.

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