LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s finance minister, Rachel Reeves, is set to introduce a new levy on high-value homes in her upcoming annual budget, the Telegraph reported.
Reeves is expected to need to raise tens of billions of pounds to stay on track to meet her fiscal targets in the budget, which will be announced on November 26.
The Telegraph story, published late on Friday, came after a surge in British government borrowing costs following reports that Reeves, in a significant policy U-turn, no longer plans to raise income tax in her budget due to improved fiscal forecasts.
According to the Telegraph, hundreds of thousands of high-value homes, mostly in London and the country’s southeast, will be impacted by the new levy.
A finance ministry spokesperson said the government department would “not comment on speculation around changes to tax outside of fiscal events”.
The newspaper reported that the government planned to use the existing council tax system to revalue 2.4 million of the most valuable properties in bands F, G, and H over the coming years.
A new, separate surcharge would then be added to existing council tax bills for 300,000 of the most valuable properties within those bands, the Telegraph said.
(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Editing by Louise Heavens)
