£1Billion missing revenue from Stamp Duty

October 22, 2018

More negative news in UK property and this time a £1,000,000,000 missing pot of cash thanks to the Governments handling of Stamp Duty. Not so much in favour has been the hiked up tax imposed on high end value property which has seen a fair slow down in this section of the market, a whooping 10% has seemed to have kept the buyers away:

£0 – £125,000 – 0% Stamp Duty

£125,001 – £250,000 – 2% Stamp Duty

£250,001 – £925,000 – 5% Stamp Duty

£925,001 – £1,500,000 – 10% Stamp Duty

Of course, many will argue that those at the top end of the property market can certainly afford to pay out such high amounts of tax and many will have made quite a packet from recent years of house price inflation anyway, though this thought process has not worked that well for the government and this ten figure number is missing from the Treasury due to George Osbourne’s stamp duty hikes of four years ago.

I agree with the higher tax that was posed on buy to let property, a 3 per cent surcharge on second homes to discourage landlords, though in all honesty this could be extended further and if scaled, ie this tax amount raises as your portfolio increases, we would have a very simple solution in solving much of the housing crisis and the over valued property across the country than we have – a flood of property on to the market held by investors / landlords would see movement in property value, ie down, and increased people being able to get on to the property ladder. Yes for sure there are many people that do not want to own a property and may still struggle to afford a home of their own so landlords (because council property has suffered in recent years) are still needed.

Christopher Walkey

Founder of Estate Agent Networking. Internationally invited speaker on how to build online target audiences using Social Media. Writes about UK property prices, housing, politics and affordable homes.

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