MPs have called on the Government to reform stamp duty or scrap it entirely to help first-time buyers who are currently struggling to afford their own home.
In a report published on Tuesday, the influential cross-party Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee warned that the tax had put major “barriers in front of people seeking to buy a new home” and “must not be maintained in its current form”.
Stamp duty is a rare thing in British politics because it unites think-tanks and economists on both the right and left – like the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) – in a broad church of agreement about how it has become a blocker to homeownership.
Shorts
Over the years, I have heard stamp duty described as “regressive”, “unfair”, “backwards” and, just this week, when I was speaking to expert housing market analyst Neal Hudson, as a “stupid” tax.
