Even Her Majesty will have to pay mansion tax on Buckingham Palace, says Labour’s Ed Balls
THE QUEEN would be subject to the Labour party’s proposed mansion tax shadow chancellor Ed Balls said yesterday, along with other wealthy property owners.
Buckingham Palace, Her Majesty’s London residence, is said to be worth more than £1bn what with a sought-after central location and a large amount of space.
However, the monarch is not alone. Many of her neighbours in the borough of Westminster, where the palace is located, would also find themselves having to pay the mansion tax if Labour were elected next year.
There are more than 2,720 properties in the area, probably not quite as luxurious as Buckingham Palace, that are worth more than £2m, the value when the proposed tax would come into play.
However, the borough’s combined millionaires still wouldn’t pay as much as those in neighbouring Kensington and Chelsea where a whopping 4,294 properties were valued over £2m, according to figures from the Land Registry which record the sale price of properties stretching back to 1995.
In third place, Camden has 1,123 properties worth over £2m and Richmond has 588.
But Newham has only two and Havering and Redbridge have five a piece.
And there are three London boroughs where there are no properties over £2m: Barking and Dagenham, Bexley and Waltham Forest.