Yes we can tax you more says Burnham - and property owners are in the frame

Andy Burnham told LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr on Thursday that there was "some room within that manifesto for movement on tax" - and then declined to rule out changes to capital gains tax, council tax, stamp duty or a new land value tax.

The Labour leader-in-waiting was careful to state his ‘boundaries.’ "I stick by the manifesto and the promises that it made," he said - meaning income tax, VAT and national insurance rates stay where they are. But the manifesto contains no such protection for property-related taxes. And Burnham's tax philosophy, repeated consistently across interviews and speeches since Keir Starmer's resignation on 22 June, is - as the Telegraph characterised it - that the UK overtaxes labour and undertaxes assets. Property is an asset.

The undertaxed argument: what the data actually shows

Before getting to the specific proposals, it is worth understanding what Burnham means by undertaxed - because the international data tells a more complicated story.

Britain already raises 2.8% of GDP from annual property taxes, the second highest in the OECD behind only Canada, according to the OECD Revenue Statistics 2025, compiled by Property Tax Lab. Germany raises 0.38%. Austria raises 0.20%. Switzerland 0.18%. The UK raises roughly seven times as much from annual property taxes as Germany and fifteen times as much as Austria. On top of that, England's stamp duty reaches a top marginal rate of 12%, among the highest transaction taxes in the developed world.

Read next: Burnham in, Reeves and Starmer out. What that means for property

So when Burnham says property is undertaxed, he is not making an international comparison - the data does not support that reading. He is making an argument about the internal structure of the UK tax system: that income from work is taxed more heavily than returns from owning assets. That is a different and more defensible claim. It means the direction of reform is not necessarily higher property taxes in aggregate, but a rebalancing - less stamp duty, more annual land value charge, CGT rates that bear a closer relationship to income tax rates.

What is actually on the table

The picture that has emerged across Burnham's campaign is a property tax agenda with several moving parts, none of them finalised but all pointing in the same direction.

Land value tax. Burnham has described himself as "long persuaded of the argument for a land value tax" - a charge levied annually on the value of the land beneath a property rather than the property itself. He has written in the Guardian about replacing stamp duty with an LVT. The Fairer Share campaign, which Burnham has publicly backed, proposes scrapping both stamp duty and council tax and replacing them with an annual charge equivalent to 0.48% of a home's current market value. On a house valued at £300,000 that would mean an annual property tax bill of £1,440. For owners of higher-value properties - particularly in London and the southeast - the annual cost would be substantially higher than current council tax bills.

Read next: Burnham's tax plans threaten biggest property shake-up in years

Council tax reform. Burnham has described council tax as "highly regressive" - still based on 1991 property valuations - and at his Makerfield by-election campaign launch called the current system "not justifiable." Reform of the bands, a full revaluation, or replacement with a proportional property tax would redistribute the burden from lower-value to higher-value homes. Owners of properties that have appreciated significantly since 1991 - which covers most of southern England - would pay more. Those in lower-value areas might pay less.

Capital gains tax. Burnham's team have been exploring targeted CGT increases on second homes and other assets as a mechanism to fund reductions in household bills. Louise Haigh, described by the Times as helping organise Burnham's transition to government, wrote last week that CGT should be "brought closer" to income tax. Burnham has not personally endorsed full CGT-income tax alignment - that was his rival Wes Streeting's position - but he has not ruled out a review. At current rates, basic-rate taxpayers pay 18% CGT on residential property gains; higher-rate taxpayers pay 24%. Full alignment with income tax would push the basic rate to 20% - a modest change - but the higher rate to 40%, a significant increase for landlords and second-home owners crystallising large gains.

Stamp duty. Burnham has described stamp duty as a barrier to people getting on in life and has indicated he would like to abolish it. The catch: any upfront saving is likely to be replaced by an annual property-based charge. The transaction tax goes down; the holding tax goes up. For buyers who purchase and stay, that may eventually be neutral or better. For those who buy and move frequently, or who own high-value property in areas where land values are highest, the net effect could be substantially worse.

The adviser divide - and what it means

The (somewhat) good news is that Burnham's own camp is not united on this. Lord O'Neill of Gatley - who has been advising Burnham on economic policy and is expected to join him in No 10 - has warned that wealth taxes can be "easily gamed" and do not raise a significant amount of money. That internal scepticism is important: O'Neill is a former commercial secretary to the Treasury and carries real weight. If he is advising caution on wealth taxes, the more aggressive versions of the CGT and LVT agenda face resistance before they reach the Commons.

The broader framing from Bishop Fleming's analysis is that Burnham's personal tax agenda represents a reallocation of the burden away from labour and small businesses and towards property, land and certain forms of wealth - rather than higher overall taxation. That distinction matters for brokers advising clients. The question is not whether taxes will rise in aggregate under Burnham - it may well be roughly revenue-neutral in ambition - but which clients will pay more and which will pay less under a rebalanced system.

The answer, on current signals: owners of high-value property, buy-to-let landlords, second-home owners, and anyone planning to crystallise significant capital gains. The clients likely to pay less: workers on PAYE, small businesses on high streets, and - potentially - first-time buyers in lower-value areas who would see council tax fall if replaced with a proportional system.

What this means in practice for brokers

Burnham isn’t prime minister yet. He enters No 10 in under three weeks, by the Times' account. He has not published a detailed tax plan, and - as both Rathbones and Tembo's analyses note - political signals at this stage do not guarantee policy outcomes. Potential changes to stamp duty, council tax, or wider property taxation could take years to materialise even if the political will exists.

But clients with property-heavy portfolios, landlords weighing the economics of their holdings, and buyers considering high-value purchases in London or the southeast are asking the right questions now. The direction of travel is towards higher annual property costs and potentially higher CGT, even if the exact mechanism is undecided. Brokers who can frame that context - here is what is signalled, here is what is uncertain, here is what it might mean for your position - are more useful to clients right now than those who are waiting for a budget to start the conversation.

Burnham's "room for movement on tax" is not ambiguity. It is a signal. Property is the most likely place that movement happens.