Petition to extend the SDLT holiday to be debated in Parliament on Monday

Mickey666

sammyjammy said:

I would rather start a petition for the opposite, we need all the tax income we can get and will do for years to come and we certainly have better uses for the money that it would have earned if there had never been such a SDLT holiday

How about an extra 1 or 2% on income tax then?
Or a 50% top tax rate instead of 45%.
Or how about abolishing the employee NI cap, that's a very regressive tax and would only hit high earners.
Why not all three?
Got for the big stuff and raise some real tax revenues instead of fiddling around with all these minor taxes.  

jimmyjammy001

sammyjammy said:

I would rather start a petition for the opposite, we need all the tax income we can get and will do for years to come and we certainly have better uses for the money that it would have earned if there had never been such a SDLT holiday

I agree double it or more, means all buyers will have less to spend on a house as will have to pay stamp duty and so house prices come down which will allow FTBs to get onto the ladder whilst paying off the covid debt! Sellers will still be making a tidy profit on their houses due to how much they have gone up over the years, alot down to the Government props that have increased prices and made more profit for them. Win Win! 

Scotbot

blue_max_3 said:

sammyjammy said:

I would rather start a petition for the opposite, we need all the tax income we can get and will do for years to come and we certainly have better uses for the money that it would have earned if there had never been such a SDLT holiday

Perhaps doubling it?

People won't pay it, it is easy to avoid just don't sell your house. Transactions and therefore SDLT duty dropped sharply after the rates were raised. The best way to increase revenue is to end the holiday but decrease rates to pre 2014 levels

big_saver_5

Dec 15th seems to have been a cut off for a lot of things (e.g old help to buy)
How about any sale formed prior to dec 15th qualifies providing they keep the same property. If the change property then stamp duty becomes payable on the new property. 

badger09

big_saver_5 said:

Dec 15th seems to have been a cut off for a lot of things (e.g old help to buy)
How about any sale formed prior to dec 15th qualifies providing they keep the same property. If the change property then stamp duty becomes payable on the new property. 

That would be totally unworkable. How would you define 'a sale formed'?

big_saver_5

mos issued and contract paperwork with the solicitors?

badger09

big_saver_5 said:

mos issued and contract paperwork with the solicitors?

Still too vague and open to interpretation.
If you suggested a short extension for those who had Exchanged contracts prior to the deadline, that could be feasible as at that point, all parties are contractually bound to proceed, or face very heavy financial consequences.
Prior to that - you're basically talking about an intention, which could be entirely one sided.

Mickey666

jimmyjammy001 said:

sammyjammy said:

I would rather start a petition for the opposite, we need all the tax income we can get and will do for years to come and we certainly have better uses for the money that it would have earned if there had never been such a SDLT holiday

I agree double it or more, means all buyers will have less to spend on a house as will have to pay stamp duty and so house prices come down which will allow FTBs to get onto the ladder whilst paying off the covid debt! Sellers will still be making a tidy profit on their houses due to how much they have gone up over the years, alot down to the Government props that have increased prices and made more profit for them. Win Win! 

Wishful thinking. 
Firstly SDLT is a very small portion of a house price so buyers will just increase their mortgage slightly.  How much higher would their repayments be if another £5-£10k is added to a 25 year mortgage?  certainly nothing significant enough to cause house prices to suddenly fall. 
Secondly, the cost of SDLT is within the haggling window for most properties anyway, ie insignificant.
Thirdly, as pointed out above, if it becomes too costly to move then people will just stay put, effectively reducing the available supply of houses - and what happens to prices when something in demand becomes scarce . . . . . ?

As for sellers making a tidy profit on their houses, how often does that actually happen in practice.  Yes, they might sell for more than they paid but the house they want to move to will also have risen in price so their 'profit' is only on paper and not in their pocket.  They could move to a cheaper house of course and free up some of their equity, but that's nor really profit any more than selling a car to replace it with a cheaper one is 'profit'.  Besides, people have always been able to do that regardless of house prices.

Until we find a way to reduce housing demand I can't see prices falling, regardless of tweaking minor things like SDLT.

Getting_greyer

Crashy_Time said:

BikingBud said:

Paying all the stamp duty is not obligatory though. If people were not hell bent on forcing HPI then HMRC would not be taking the vast sums they are.

We seem to believe our house is worth more and therefore feel the need to inflate the asking price. The house we buy next has also done the same and we end up chasing ourselves into a frenzy, committing a greater sum of money that we must borrow over a longer period and to service that over inflated debt we must forego other pleasurable aspects of life. In the mean time the govt and the bankers sit back and laugh.  

It's a very strange human quirk that drives this game! 

Just a matter of time before sellers have to pay it IMO.

Do you not think that this would push prices up though?  When you first suggested this, I looked at some scenarios.  It was quite interesting. For instance. Imagine there is 5 houses being bought from Ftb up the chain to a downsizer buying a probate.  Now let's assume ftb is 200k, each house price increases by 100k thereafter upto the last one (500k) which is then used to downsize to a probate at 250k.

Now I have made a load of assumptions here but if sdlt was moved to sellers and the current (post april) rates are used, total sdlt paid is lower buy 1k but the last in the chain would need to increase their sell price to c.513k to enjoy the same amount of equity. This would then reverse and alter asking prices back through the chain.  I didn't really try to disprove myself so my example is probably very weak in places but it was interesting to consider.

BikingBud

How about if you take 25% off the purchase prices of all the houses, who loses then?
HMRC and bankers, everyone else is saving!