Concerns have been raised by the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, that the so-called mansion tax may possibly result in vicars being evicted from their homes.
From April 2028 properties price over two million might be hit by a £2,500 or more annual council tax surcharge. At the upper end, the charge could possibly be as much as £7,500.
Speaking to The Telegraph, the bishop warned that many vicarages, particularly in poorer parts of the country, wouldn’t have the ability to afford the extra financial burden.
“Property values could be very high even in areas with quite high deprivation. If you take a look at east London [for example], it wouldn’t be hard to search out congregations who’re largely struggling in lower paid jobs in a parish where the vicarage is the one place for meetings to happen.
“There is not any way that folks in an East End parish would have the ability to pay this mansion tax on top of the whole lot else they’re paying.”
Church law requires that the clergy live inside their parish.
Bishop Walker added, “I can provide permission to a vicar to live outside the parish if it’s obligatory. Just occasionally, there’s a property just outside the boundaries of the parish and I’d give the vicar permission to live there.
“But we don’t do this flippantly. The whole point of the residence law is they need to know their very own people walking the streets, going to the shops they usually should know their community. If they find yourself commuting from the suburbs, you lose that.”
Bishop Walker called upon the federal government to exempt vicars from the brand new charge.
Labour’s tax policies have created additional challenges for Christians.
Already 50 private schools, lots of them Christian, have closed down attributable to Labour’s imposition of VAT on school fees, effectively denying low price private and Christian-based education to working people on lower incomes.
The government can also be considering ending an already scaled down scheme that exempted historic churches from VAT on repairs, a move that would put as much as 260 Anglican places of worship in danger.
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