In the run up to the 2010 general election, the Liberal Democrats announced, amongst other things, a policy that was quickly termed a ‘Mansion Tax’.

It was unveiled as a ‘rob the rich to help the poor’ levy on all properties with a value of £1m or more. The middle classes gasped, the Lib Dems retreated and re-jigged things a bit and re-announced that their idea would relate to properties of £2m plus instead. All a bit hickledy piggledy and no doubt designed to appeal to the left of the political spectrum at a time of much vote grabbing generally.

But today the Mansion Tax thing has reared it’s ugly head once again. Thankfully Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has warned of his coalition colleague’s idea that to introduce a property wealth tax (another one in addition to the inexact council tax) would be ‘a mistake’.

Regardless of your political leanings, you’ll agree that with a property market that has been bashed into submission of late, to add more purchase tax in addition to a stamp duty level that is now up to four times what it was in 1997, would assist in kicking the market further when down. The implications would ripple downwards.

But it’s also altogether unfair. Home values across the UK vary widly. Indeed they vary considerably within just the same county. A large five bedroom Victorian house in mid-Essex, for example might be worth £1m. Half an hour up the A12 in Halstead, it’s worth half that. Why should one house, the same as another, attract a penalty but the other not?

Of course we can have the debate about ‘rich people deserving to be taxed higher’, higher than the 50% top rate that they doubtless already pay and after the heightened stamp duty that they have forked out on their more expensive purchase too. But that’s not the rub here.

Taxing property wealth is the bluntest of instruments. There is often a rift between the value of a property, perhaps owned by a surving widow or widower or family member, that bears little if any relation to the amount of money available to them in liquid cash terms.

Tax the bankers and the market speculators perhaps. Fags and booze? Why not.

But to increase the financial pressure on someone because of the home that they have worked hard for or have been left with, is just spiteful.

And in any case, who will set the value of each property?

How much will the valuation process cost us, the weary tax payer?

What mechanism will be put in place to oversee the appeals process (because there will be many appeals) and how much will that also cost?

What will happen if values go down? What measure will be used to prove that decline and over what period will a reduction in cost be scrutinised over before it is ‘accepted’?

A Mansion Tax would be unfair and draconian and not least, just as expensive to collect as any income it brought about.

We for one hope that Mr Pickles has his way.

A Budget today that acknowledges the housing market with measures to reduce stamp duty for multiple premises purchased as a package by developers and investors but in a more mainstream gesture also confirmed a total of £250 million in the form of loans for deposits to first time buyers. A sort of extension to the ‘Homebuy’ scheme.

A raising of the tax allowance and a reduction in fuel duty by 1p per litre leaves many better off, unless they are smokers and/or drinkers of course.

For business, corporation tax is to be reduced by 2% in April and by more in future years and £350 million of cumbersome ‘red tape’ will be removed from the way of entrepreneurs and new businesses.

It could have been MUCH worse, all things considered.

And for the hard pushed property seller, there’s an announcement here of further cuts in estate agents fees, by up to 90%!

Stamp Duty on property purchases is a pretty hideous tax. It’s a levy on aspiration and a tax on the South East in particular with its higher house prices.

Once, it was (almost) palatable at a flat 1% on all home purchases. And then, in 1997, Gordon Brown as chancellor made it one of his first tasks to increase it to 3% above £250,001 and 4% for all transactiosn above £500,001. Taxing the ‘rich’ started early in the new Labour Government.

But now, in a suggestion that is justified by its intention to ‘balance the market’, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has suggested that stamp duty be replaced by an annual property tax. A true and regular burden on home ownership and not just a one off swipe on purchase. Something from feudal times no less.

The obvious motive is to raise more tax revenue from a population that occassionally, as now, loses its appetite for moving home and thus pays less in transactional property tax. But a yearly monetary grab of all home owners would get around that, as the OECD sees it. Like Council Tax does in fact. It’s blunt and indiscriminate.

Let us hope that the politicians ignore the OECD’s call to punish those that have worked hard to own their own properties. Our homes are not a cash cow to be raided by Governments when their predecessors are found to have wasted all the other tax pounds that they fleeced us for previously.

And in any case most would agree that the tax payer, having bailed out the banks for their unguarded and irresponsible gambles, should come some way after the banks and bankers in turning out their pockets once again.