£24 000 stamp duty!!!! I feel ill.

Andy_L

Oddgy wrote:

What would you call an average wage this day in age in anycase??!!!

ISTR that in 2005 the median was ~£23k pa

PhilDS

whambamboo wrote:

Sadly, it doesn't buy you that much, at least not in London.

You'd think, £600k, that is a lot of money for a person to have - nearly a million, and you really should be getting a massive house with at least an acre....

Sadly not:

£700k for a poxy flat in Hampstead
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-8339653.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

£600k for a flat in sodding Brixton
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-7768744.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

The world's gone mad.

Don't live in London then. It's that simple. There are trains that will take you to Southampton in little over an hour where house prices are more like £200k for a 3 bed semi in a great area. People who buy those flats in London can afford it and so are rich b*****ds!

bunking_off

It isn't the fact that stamp duty is at 3% which is the real issue, it's that it applies to the whole lot. If the thresholds applied like every other tax, you'd pay the higher rate on the amount above them, lower rate on the level below. Unfortunately, it doesn't...pay 1p over the threshold & you're stung for the full higher rate on the lot. This creates ridiculous distortions in the market, e.g. try selling a house for £260k.

I'd disagree with those who term stamp duty a stealth tax. There's nothing stealth about it...everyone knows it exists and the implications are factored into the house prices. That's quite unlike, for example, stealth taxes like those on share dividends held in pension schemes, which on the quiet took a large chunk out of most people's future income.

mrs_deadline

bunking_off wrote:

It isn't the fact that stamp duty is at 3% which is the real issue, it's that it applies to the whole lot. If the thresholds applied like every other tax, you'd pay the higher rate on the amount above them, lower rate on the level below. Unfortunately, it doesn't...pay 1p over the threshold & you're stung for the full higher rate on the lot. This creates ridiculous distortions in the market, e.g. try selling a house for £260k.

Totally agree - makes it extra hard to get funds together to move from a 1% property to a 3% property too. Should apply in bands like other taxes.

silvercar

bunking_off wrote:

It isn't the fact that stamp duty is at 3% which is the real issue, it's that it applies to the whole lot. If the thresholds applied like every other tax, you'd pay the higher rate on the amount above them, lower rate on the level below. Unfortunately, it doesn't...pay 1p over the threshold & you're stung for the full higher rate on the lot. This creates ridiculous distortions in the market, e.g. try selling a house for £260k.

Totally agree. it also distorts the housing market, with houses at £125, £250 and £500 impossible to sell.

Sultana

Would you rather Pay VAT on it? Stamp duty is important because it offers a way for the government to dampen an overheated housing market without killing the rest of the economy by putting interest rates up across the board (as happened in the late 1980s and early 90s). In the Irish Republic the top rate is 9% on properties over €630,000!

mike3000

belleooo wrote:

Not necessarily. Small businesses are particularly hit hard with this. Take farming for example. Property and land is mega expensive so the duty is heavy. But the proffession itself hardly puts you in the rich stakes.

But profits from agriculture can be spent within agriculture and be tax free.

ie if a farm earns £100000 in a year and buys extra land for £100000 then no tax to pay.

gingerdad

Sultana wrote:

Would you rather Pay VAT on it? Stamp duty is important because it offers a way for the government to dampen an overheated housing market without killing the rest of the economy by putting interest rates up across the board (as happened in the late 1980s and early 90s). In the Irish Republic the top rate is 9% on properties over €630,000!

No I’d rather the govt and all the councils stopped wasting millions, case in point Cumbria cc told it put 1 million into youth services then spend 700,000 on administration and go the charity sector and say if we give you the 300,000 will you supply our youth service at a knock down rate, and they even have the cheek to then say you need to monitor how many contacts you get.

The whole system is !!!!!!ed, and the waste is massive, I have worked for a number of different companies in different industries. All have worked with councils (different departments and different levels) and every one has wasted loads on orders I have dealt with. Until they stop wasting billions nothing will change, the 1% increase in NI was a case in point it has all been spent on wage increases and now all the NHS trusts round us are cutting services to make the budgets meet. I’d love for our business to have their resources to waste in the way every govt department does.

The best one was being told by some one employed by the Job centre that the new deal works, "just look at me I got a job here", that’s not a system working.

Rant over

GD,

PS my in-laws house now would be in the over 500K bracket and they have never had lots of money, own B&B and a Joiner, but they have invested wisely.

pollyanna24

I live just outside London and have accepted that we have to pay a premium for our bog standard 3 bed terraced house. As much as I love it, I realise that they are a third of the price up north.

We tried moving away, but it didn't work. I found it too hard to get to work and most of all, missed my family.

People say we don't have to live in London, but what if you were born and bred here. Why should I move away from my birthplace?!!!

And before anyone says I must be rich to have lived in London all my life, i.e. my parents must be loaded - we have council houses here too, ya know, but I want to own my own house which I don't think is too much to ask!

irnbru_2

gingerdad wrote:

Until they stop wasting billions nothing will change, the 1% increase in NI was a case in point it has all been spent on wage increases and now all the NHS trusts round us are cutting services to make the budgets meet.

As opposed to what, budgeting properly in the first place?

I don't begrudge paying NHS staff a proper wage.

I do begrudge paying over the top on PFI projects.