How stamp duty became Britain’s most toxic tax

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tamp duty is one of our most hated taxes — it actively stops people from moving.

And the ending in April of the temporary reprieve that had raised stamp duty thresholds since September 2022 has hit first-time buyers particularly hard.

Most first-time buyers would have paid no stamp duty on the first £425,000 of a property’s sale price, but this is now back down to £300,000, while the tax-free threshold for other buyers has gone from £250,000 back to £125,000.

Ed Cunningham, 28, missed the deadline to benefit from the larger first-time buyers’ stamp duty relief by a matter of weeks when he bought his one-bedroom flat in Walthamstow, east London, in the spring. What would have been a small tax bill of about £750 ballooned to more than £7,000 overnight.