The taxation of housing is intergenerationally unfair: the nation does not get richer when house prices rise. Instead, when a home is sold, there is usually a transfer of wealth from young buyers to older sellers. The windfall increase in house values that has benefited older generations has not come about from investment or risk-taking, but arises simply from being an owner-occupier for many years. The introduction of capital gains tax (CGT) on the sale of a primary residence would feed some of that unearned financial gain back into government coffers. This could be spent across generations: on social care for older people, as well as new housing for younger people. Applying
