Liz Truss stamp duty announcement

[Puncturedbicycle85]

I have seen that LT intends to cut stamp duty and will announce it this week. Does anyone know how quickly this will be brought in? I can’t remember how fast it was brought in when it was cut during the pandemic.

Stamp duty stops people moving home, it is a terrible tax.

I ve moved many times and given the numbers who move around the UK each year, clearly "stops people moving" is a slight exaggeration, don't you think?

Even on 400k its 10k or 2.5%, as taxes go, fairly low.

I don't think it has been reported yet has it?

I would prefer to see a permanent change rather than a holiday. Like raising the thresholds and/or lowering the %

If it made no difference then the last stamp duty holiday wouldn't have resulted in additional sales and the ending of it wouldn't have produced a slump.

If this helps the squeezed middle & gets housing moving & the eveninmunjn general, that will help people on lower incomes & benefits.

How on earth does is spending billions to 'get houses moving' an efficient way to help people on lower incomes? I don't see the link.

If you want to jump start an economy (and I'm not sure we do want to do that the way inflation is going) then capital investment of the type I suggested upthread is much more effective.

This is just pissing money down the drain.

You'll have to point out where i said it makes no difference? i was answering the pp who said it stopped anyone moving.

Of course people will rush to save a few '000's that obvious but where is the benefit to the wider society?

On the "push for growth" the Govt is saying Growth/tax cuts/increase money supply, meanwhile the BoE along with all other major central banks are rising interest rates to reduce money supply - Right not knowing what the left hand is doing?

@walkingonsunshinekat

For anyone in my area to sell their house and buy a new one would cost 10% stamp duty roughly.

SD is a tiered scale so a £1m house works out around 7%.

Yay higher house prices, more people priced out of owning their own homes, more people condemned to suffer the vagaries and expense of private renting, more housing insecurity ... people who work for a living screwed over yet again to prop up those with unearned wealth

And how many extra houses will this build? And how much of the saving will be eaten up by estate agent charges?

Are you genuinely suggesting that the majority of people who own their own homes don’t work for a living? Surely no one is that dim.

This isn't about making houses cheaper it's about making it cheaper to move. With inheritance tax threshold so low now most people in London are not able to pass their home to their children because of the tax. When they die a huge proportion goes in tax for the benefit of everyone.

And meanwhile people with cladding who have not been able to sell for years are stuck and nothing is being done...

With inheritance tax threshold so low now most people in London are not able to pass their home to their children because of the tax. When they die a huge proportion goes in tax for the benefit of everyone.

it's not a low threshold, more that prices are ridiculous. There are loads of way to mitigate the tax.

This isn't about making houses cheaper it's about making it cheaper to move.

it's about propping up the market

I've read that 'experts' are suggesting a permanent increase in the threshold.

If the buyer no longer has to pay xx % the seller will just up the price, so i sold my house during the last SD holiday, estate agent had a higher fee, 1.2% instead of 1% and upped the price.

I assume you live in the SE ? the area that traditionally drives the UK housing market.

All the talk of SD and fracking nonsense is for the Tory 'right and to divert from borrowing levels that even Corbyn wouldn't have done.

We've a BoE trying to bring down money supply in direct conflict with Truss who wants to increase it.

You can't grow an economy selling houses at ever increasing prices to one another. At some point money has to come IN to the system from outside and be liquid enough to move around - up, down, and around. What's the plan for that? Oh right, there isn't one.

You can't grow an economy selling houses at ever increasing prices to one another

but that's what we've done for years now. No investment in services, skills, wage stagnation & huge house price growth

Exactly

Yes it would raise house prices, so overall, the state would gain the same amount in stamp duty because people continue to buy houses. People get pleased because they think they have a discount and the treasury still get their income but overall the damage is rising house prices in a bubble

Well as we are buying a house just now it would be good, but overall not really a great idea. Better to tax more on BTL landlords, purchase of second homes. Or just to change the banding system completely as it seems unfair to go up in huge increments, why can't it be more proportional - it goes 5% on £250,001 - 925k in the highest band, clearly bonkers as you don't even get much for £250k any more, whereas if you can afford £900k then that should be in a different bracket.

@ginghamstarfish agree

@towelhammer The IHT threshold has been frozen since 2009, house prices have more than doubled in that period in the SE so the taxman gets a massive slice of the value which everyone in the country benefits from so yes people outside the SE do benefit from high house prices too.

@walkingonsunshinekat You are missing the point, it's a tax on moving home. Most London homes are now in the 12% stamp duty bracket. Why would you ever move unless you were forced to.