Figures released by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have revealed that stamp duty land tax (SDLT) receipts between April and July this year were £7 billion.
This represents an increase of £1.3 billion from the same period a year earlier (+23%).
HMRC said that the markedly higher receipts from April 2022, compared to the same period a year earlier, is in part due to the SDLT holiday.
Others have suggested that the rise in receipts is simply due to the strength of the market. “High employment, a strong housing market and burgeoning holiday demand means HMRC’s tax take keeps on rising”, said Helen Morrissey, senior pensions and retirement analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
This idea is reinforced by data from Zoopla earlier this year which showed that a striking three million homes in the UK are now in a higher stamp duty bracket than at the start of the pandemic, thanks to rising house prices.
This led to the HomeOwners Alliance calling for an “urgent review” of the tax, the basis for which being:
- Almost a third more first time buyers are having to pay stamp duty, despite the government’s first time buyer exemption. 30% more first time buyers are paying stamp duty than when first time buyer relief was first introduced five years ago. One in four (26%) of all first time buyers now pay stamp duty.
- Soaring house prices now mean almost one in five more homebuyers (+17%) have been pushed into paying higher stamp duty bands. 44% of transactions now fall in bands above £250K; up from 38% two years ago. An additional 31,500 transactions are now subject to stamp duty, compared to 2 years ago.
- One in four properties (26%) liable for stamp duty are now in bands above £500K; up from one in six two years ago (16%). These properties are subject to stamp duty rates of between 5 – 12%. (figure 3)
- Almost half of the stamp duty is paid by the surcharge levied at investors and those buying second homes. The additional properties stamp duty surcharge now makes up 46% of total receipts.
Total SDLT receipts over the 12 months leading up to February were £16.9 billion, a record taking for HMRC. However, it seems plausible that the receipts this year will surpass that total.
