conservatives and stamp duty

antenna

antenna wrote:

The common practice in Spain is to underdeclair the selling price of your property by at least 20%.......and receive the difference in cash or under the counter cheque........this saves taxes which in Spain are very high.....up to 35% tax on capital gain...........this also goes on in the uk......but with much less scope.......but now if your property sold for 285.000 pounds you would be a fool to declare this value for the property,you would still receive 285.000 pounds but 36.000 would be for fixtures and fittings.......or under the counter cash................(now)...if the conservative party wins the election

Please read the above from the buyers point of view...............i had my Spanish hat on while posting that........the buyer would ask for the value to be under-declaired to save on stamp duty.........whereas in Spain the seller underdeclaires to save on capital gains tax............

fairenoughclough

dougk wrote:

My whole take on politics is that MP's lie and are never accountable.

If I went for a job and told them I could do things I couldn't I would later be sacked instantantly and could even be sued.

Similarly if a paper publishes lies they are sued nowdays - so why can't the same happen for MP's. If they say something it should be kept to - no excuses!

A fair replacement to Council Tax is just to increase the standard Tax Rates for everyone. The councils could then be funded soley by government for the basic services.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I agree with every word.

DavidLaGuardia

The one positive thing about Stamp Duty is that ist is cheap for the governement to collect. Like any tax, If it's removed, it only means screwing down the taxpayer elsewhere.
The disaster is the fact the current tiers put artificial pricing barriers. There is no point going over £250,000 unless you are significantly over it and now the owners of many smaller properties in many parts of the UK may struggle to sell for more than £120,000. I say keep the tax on all properties, but were there is any progression make it apply only to the excess over a particular band.

zzzLazyDaisy

antenna wrote:

.......the buyer would ask for the value to be under-declaired to save on stamp duty..........

New rules were introduced last year to get round this. All carpets, furniture, etc, not included in the purchase price, must be itemised, with the original purchase price and the current value. Solicitors have a duty to make sure this is done. It is an offence to attempt to evade the Stamp Duty by artificially inflating the price of the contents.

Joe_Bloggs

@DavidLaGuardia and all.
The banding of this tax discredits those that supervise its collection. It proves that they have no guts to reform it. Some say stamp duty dates back as far back as the Romans. With the advent of computer technology in the administration of documents where is the need for the stamp duty ?

There are boroughs where stamp duty on property is not required to be paid!
J_B.

Joe_Bloggs

To correct myself.
In England stamp duty is waived for residential properties in wards considered deserving of disadvantaged area relief.
You can check if you know the postcode here:-
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/so/pcode_search.htm
There is a list of qualifying wards here:-
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/so/disadvantaged.htm#1
J_B.(I am lost for wards. What a confusing boundary concept!)

DavidLaGuardia

What is the need of any tax? Revenue needs to come from somewhere and its levied on income,wealth and consumption. Remove stamp duty and you simply require funds to be taken from elsewhere. What do YOU propose we tax instead?
Income and consumption (VAT) are already highly taxed when compared to capital, which despite intial appearances is exactally what stamp duty is. Remove it and, due to the laws of supply and demand controlling prices, on average vendors would demand the equivalent more. Stamp duty is thus the only lifetime tax that is tax on one'shome as it is not subject to captial gains tax, compared to the horrific rates of deductions made from income, I think it's pretty leniant

theGrinch

DavidLaGuardia wrote:

What is the need of any tax? Revenue needs to come from somewhere and its levied on income,wealth and consumption. Remove stamp duty and you simply require funds to be taken from elsewhere. What do YOU propose we tax instead?
Income and consumption (VAT) are already highly taxed when compared to capital, which despite intial appearances is exactally what stamp duty is. Remove it and, due to the laws of supply and demand controlling prices, on average vendors would demand the equivalent more. Stamp duty is thus the only lifetime tax that is tax on one'shome as it is not subject to captial gains tax, compared to the horrific rates of deductions made from income, I think it's pretty leniant

surely saying stamp isnt bad compared to income tax is like saying losing your arm isnt that bad as it could have been your leg; i dont think its something to be grateful for.

When public spending is what hundreds of billions are you really saying there is no scope for savings and spending adjustments?

never to question how and why we are taxed and where it goes leads to higher rates and lazy government.

surfcat

I can't believe none of you (and most of the media) have not picked up on a very basic point. As soon as stamp duty is removed, sellers will put their prices up by 1%! The problem with the housing market is not stamp duty but the appalling shortage of reasonably priced housing. Three or four year ago stamp duty would not have been an issue for most people. It is even more of a problem in the south east, which is massively overpopulated. Successive governments continue to encourage jobs and investment into the SE, and their associated service workers, housing etc. What is needed is the reduction in jobs, businesses in the SE and spreading out into the regions.

To be honest though, if you're buying at the moment as a FTB you're being a little silly. The whole market will very soon be in freefall, which will make stamp duty look like the drop in the ocean that it really is.

DavidLaGuardia

theGrinch wrote:

surely saying stamp isnt bad compared to income tax is like saying losing your arm isnt that bad as it could have been your leg; i dont think its something to be grateful for.

When public spending is what hundreds of billions are you really saying there is no scope for savings and spending adjustments?

never to question how and why we are taxed and where it goes leads to higher rates and lazy government.

Of course we should question what government spend and do away with waste and findways of saving money, but that is a SEPARATE argument. If we do this we simply reduce what is required overall from tax.
If we decide to reduce spending and do away with just one tax, it is STILL at the expense of other taxes that share the burden that might have otherwise been reduced.
The effect of one tax on one person may be totally different than another (e.g. VAT is a greater proportion of household burden for low earners), so it is right that revenue raising is spread over a number of different methods.