As property sales stall, stamp duty raises £1bn less – what is the solution?

Dr. Roger Gewolb, Executive Chairman and Founder of FairMoney discusses a solution to the problem of falling sales resulting in a significant fall in stamp duty.

Stamp duty revenue fell by nearly £1 billion last year as George Osborne’s 2014 reforms to shift more of the tax burden onto expensive homes backfired. There was a rift at the top of the market as transactions collapsed. This was partly due to the punishing costs of moving homes. Money to support house building hasn’t delivered enough and the private sector needs to be made more accessible and removing barriers would streamline this process.

Dr. Roger Gewolb has commented:

“This lack of movement calls for change. Scrapping stamp duty would eradicate many issues plaguing the housing market which is at its weakest state currently. We need to introduce methods to fix the dormant housing market through either stamp duty changes or by building more homes. We need to ask who do we help first; first-time buyers or older downsizers? Consumers will most likely wait for the uncertainty to fade before even considering moving homes.

“The Government need to think about who they will help, and will they make the housing sector fairer? The Government is under a huge amount of pressure to fix the housing market, and this needs attention once we have more clarity surrounding Brexit.”

Kindly shared by FairMoney