A modern day highwayman
05 Mar 2007 - JG
You have to hand it to him, Gordon Brown is a highly successful opportunist. If it can be taxed, it will be taxed and the less people realise what he is doing the better. The Dour Scot is famed for stealth taxes but it's the way he makes the most of changing circumstances (and gets away with it, it seems) that is most impressive.
As we all know, house prices have been rising at an impressive rate over the past few years. However, the rate at which buyers pay stamp duty has barely moved. So a house that was free from stamp duty a few years ago, is now ripe for the Iron Chancellor's very large hands and deep pockets. A survey by the Halifax has revealed the extent of the problem. Nearly 300,000 purchases fell into the three per cent bracket last year as the number of properties sold above its £250,000 threshold soared. Their figures show that over the past five years there has been a 281 per cent rise in the number of home sales in England and Wales above the £250,000 threshold. Kaching!
Total revenue generated by stamp duty in 2005/06 was £4.6 billion, up 114 per cent from £2.1 billion in 2000/01. The highest 4 per cent rate, which applies to properties above £500,000, would now cover 600,000 homes. Kaching!
As a result the Halifax is calling on the government to raise stamp duty in line with the rate at which house prices have risen. Of course this will not happen and sooner or later stamp duty will not be a threshold tax but a guaranteed tax on all house buyers. So, unless you are well established on the property ladder, you can forget it and if you are there you better be prepared to hand over even more money to Brown.
A treasury spokesman has defending the Chancellor by reminding us of his generosity when in 2005 the Chancellor doubled the zero-rate threshold to £120,000, and last year raised it further to £125,000. A £5000 increase in the stamp duty threshold? House increase by that £5k virtually over night at the moment! £5k is not even a token gesture - it's an insult to the tax payer and a typical example of the contempt Gordon Brown has for our money. He sees it as his right to get his hands on it.