Chancellor accused of 'cashing in' by raising stamp duty

[AtW]

" The Chancellor was accused of cashing in on the buoyant housing market on Friday after it emerged the amount the Treasury pockets from residential stamp duty will nearly triple to £14 billion by the end of the decade. AtW's comment: oh FFS, give this chap a break - he is doing his best to reinflate property bubble and deserves to get his cut.

Across the UK the average stamp duty paid by house buyers across will jump from 2.21 per cent of a transaction to 2.88 per cent by 2018-2019.

Experts said tax receipts would "explode" as George Osborne keeps duty thresholds unchanged despite the boom in house prices.

This means that tens of thousands of people will be dragged into paying higher brackets of stamp duty. Currently, anyone buying a house for less than £250,000 pay 1 per cent duty but this rises to 3 per cent above £250,000.

In research for the Daily Telegraph, Grant Thornton, the accountants, said receipts from residential transactions would ballon from £4.9 billion to £13.7 billion - more than tobacco duty and almost five times more than the Government raises through the bank levy. "

Source: Chancellor accused of 'cashing in' by raising stamp duty - Telegraph

[Ticktock]

An alternative view is that he's trying to hold down prices at the low end of the market, by stopping people selling at £260K, when buyers will want to only pay £250K.

Also, that with concerns over how difficult it is for young peeople to get on the housing market this could be seen as targetting the well-off to provide extra revenue he can use to support the less well-off.
He was already trumpetting the line about "the top 1% of tax-payers are paying 30% of tax - and we're going to make them pay more so that everyone pays their share" or whatever it was. Now he could add "Homeowners are benefitting from rising prices whilst FTBs can't get on the market, so we're going to make people moving up the ladder contribute more".

Or, of course, it could just be he sees it as a soft-target to raise revenue. He doesn't have to announce a tax rise, just sit back and let the market bring more money to him.

[Ruprect]

Badly titled article. He's not raising stamp duty at all; the revenues are rising due to the inflating house prices.

It's a crap tax badly implemented. Should be overhauled IMO.

[VectraMan]

He's also cashing in on rising incomes, cashing in on rising fuel prices, cashing in on rising energy prices, cashing in on rising company profits...

[d000hg]

It's a crap tax badly implemented. Should be overhauled IMO.

Agree.

Our house is value is right on a stamp-duty threshold which effectively means its value is held in place until it suddenly leaps some distance over.

[AtW]

He's also cashing in on rising incomes, cashing in on rising fuel prices, cashing in on rising energy prices, cashing in on rising company profits...

What a *******!!!