But Mr Cleverly has said he would make it his ambition to go further, scrapping the “perverse” levy entirely for anyone purchasing a home, regardless of the value of the property or whether they have owned one before.
He argued this would remove blocks on older people downsizing and young families upsizing, allowing for more movement in the market.
Quite right too. Transactions taxes are a bad idea – all they do is gum up the market itself.
Abolish all stamp duty too….including the one on shares.
Stamp duty seems a bit unfair. There can be justification for taxing people who earn, or spend more or live in a bigger house – but just because they move house!
Now that the Cons are out of power, they claim they want to cut taxes.
Surely all taxes are transaction taxes in one form or another? The only purpose for money is as a token of exchange between suppliers and consumers of goods and services. Even income tax is a tax on exactly this transaction.
When was the last time a Labour government abolished a tax? I can’t think of an example but there must be one?
Wasn’t Cleverly in a position to actually do this a couple of months ago?
@Martin – Gordon Brown, 9% betting tax abolished in the late 1990s. Helped allow Flutter and then Betfair to accelerate. It was sort of replaced with a profit tax instead though.
So it has happened. I don’t think we’ll be seeing it again under Starmer.
“betting tax abolished in the late 1990s”
So not on anything useful. I suspect it was abolished because the government got a share of the bets, so they wanted more people to bet.
@Norman
Council tax is a tax on owning a house not buying one.
M
The 9% tax payable by punters was replaced by a 15% tax, on net takings after payouts, payable by bookies. To cover this the “over-round” margins were quietly adjusted in the bookie favour.
For a while betting exchanges flourished charging a maximum of 5% commission on near-perfect margins giving both backers and layers a decent chance. Then the largest exchange (having first mopped up most of the smaller competitors) got greedy and created an additional “premium charge” out of nowhere slashing the profitability of the big players who were providing the necessary liquidity in the first place.
On-course firms, for many years servicing punters anxious to take advantage of tax-free betting, nowadays simply plug into the exchange rather than actually use their own judgement and inside knowledge to “make a book”. It has all become terribly dull.
@David
Sure, but it has to be paid with money, not with a bit of the house. That money has to come from somewhere. If the house isn’t being sold to pay the tax, then something else has to be, or income (either immediate, or deferred via savings and investments) has to be used to pay it.
iirc Lawson promised to abolish stamp duty on shares once system computerised. Computerised happened, stamp duty not abolished