UK Stamp Duty Has Doubled Under Labour, Claims Tory Party

by Robert Lee, Tax-News.com, London

30 August 2004

Stamp duty for UK housebuyers has doubled since the governing Labour Party came to power in 1997, the opposition Conservative Party has claimed.

According to the Tories, in May 1997, purchasing a house of average value would have incurred a stamp duty bill of £680. In November 2003, the same purchase would have led to a stamp duty bill of £1,573 – more than double.

This has been to a large extent attributable to the government’s failure to raise the stamp duty thresholds whilst house prices soared, forcing more house purchasers into the higher bands, the party noted.

Chancellor Gordon Brown introduced a banding system for stamp duty so that properties valued between £60,001 and £250,000 paid a 1% levy, houses up to £500,000 paid 3% and houses above half a million pounds paid 4%. Prior to the changes, stamp duty was applied universally at 1%.

"This is another example of Gordon Brown's 66 stealth tax rises. When house prices are rising, and stamp duty thresholds do not rise with them, the Chancellor increases taxes for homeowners," commented the Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin.

"The sad thing is that all this extra tax is going to feed fat government rather than getting through to front line services. We need to thin government down so that tax burdens can be reduced instead of increased," he argued.

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