Rishi Sunak is coming under increasing pressure to scrap stamp duty altogether, along with council tax, and replace both charges with a national property tax instead.
Charity Fairer Share is arguing the chancellor should abolish both taxes, and replace them with a new tax for people who own property.
The charity has proposed a replacement proportional property tax, consisting of a simple rate of 0.48% on the current value of the property.
Some Tory MPs are also pushing to reform stamp duty, mainly because it deters people from moving home.
Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake, also chairman of Hunters, believes that council tax and stamp duty should be replaced with ‘a proportional property tax (PPT) which would tax all homes at exactly the same rate based on up-to-date property values’.
He said: “These taxes are unfair, complicated and block aspiration. Unfair because the poorest find themselves hit hardest. ‘Complicated because they are difficult to understand and command an intricate web of bureaucracy to administer.
“And they hinder aspiration by taxing property transactions and discouraging people from moving home.”
The current stamp duty holiday is due to end at the end of March this year.
Fairer Share’s petition for a PPT this morning exceeded the 100,000 threshold it needs to be considered for debate in Parliament.
Comments (10)
Stamp duty needs to go back to pre-gordon brown and Tony Blair years.
1% across the board. I swear more people will move and the treasury will generate more money.
I agree, but I think first time buyers should be exempt. They are already having to save an enormous amount for a deposit, so having to find £Xthousand more would stop, or at least delay, them from entering the market.
One of the only sectors to be allowed to trade throughout the majority of the pandemic moaning about the SDLT holiday coming to an end!
I think most estate agents have done very well and, even though I petitioned for the original holiday, it’s not a bad thing it’s coming to an end!
Splitting SDLT equally between buyer and seller is the best solution but, let’s face it, the government are unlikely to abolish it and not should they with the amount of debt accruing!
Awful socialist idea, so they want to shift the burden of collecting the council tax on to the landlord. Lovely! so we have to put the rent up again. Grossly unfair and immoral idea, what happens when the tenant does not pay the landlord but we still have to pay the PTT?
Kevin Hollinrake was the MP who advocated the tenant fees ban which a disgrace and showed complete lack of respect to landlords. We now live in a socialist country and are behaving more and more like a third world country all of the time. This is just another tax on the wealthy via the back door.
The Valuation Office already snowed under with business rates appeals would need a complete overhaul to undertake annual domestic property valuations and likely appeals
At a rate of 0.46% to account for both council tax & stamp duty this likely to create a huge shortfall just at the wrong time
Although I’d be worse off under this scheme it does seem fairer and simpler.
I for one, would not be able to afford my council tax. Equity rich – cash poor. Plenty in those shoes.
Agreed and were this a serious proposal, you could garantee the press would fnd a poor, widowed person in a large house who hardly used counicl services living next door to a working family of six adults who pay the same. Then some bright spark will suggest it should vary depending on the number of people over 18 in the house.
I can even give them a name for it, “The community Charge”. It was a good idea once but the “Can’t pay, won’t pay” rioted and it was cancelled.
Based on his equation there will be a significant shortfall of tax compared to the current system. Sounds like he is robbing Peter to pay Paul. I feel a better solution would be for home sellers to pay stamp duty as they often sit on more equity with a government scheme which runs alongside this so people can access funds should they fall into a negative equity situation.
Don’t agree – lots of research on the internet show that if you reduced or abolished SDLT then overall revenue would increase.
After George Osborne messed with stamp duty revenue overall has decreased ever since…