A new call is to be issued today for Stamp Duty to be halved on homes which are main residences and are worth over £500,000.
Right-wing think tank Onward also suggests that serious consideration should be given to scrapping Stamp Duty Land Tax entirely.
The proposed halving would cost £3.3bn, but Onward says this would be covered by taxes on non-UK resident buyers, vacant homes and on second homes.
Onward’s report comes after Tory leadership front-runner Boris Johnson said he would scrap the tax on all homes under £500,000. He has also since indicated that he would consider swapping the tax from buyer to seller.
If Johnson becomes prime minister, as expected, there are concerns that transactions could slow as buyers sit on their hands to see if Stamp Duty is reformed.
The Outlook paper, co-authored by Chris Philp MP, who was the Tory party’s policy chief until May, and Will Tanner, a former Number 10 adviser, is said to be under consideration by Johnson’s own advisers.
A source told the Telegraph at the weekend: “Key figures on Boris Johnson’s team are studying it carefully and are very interested in it.”
The Onward report says that the changes it proposes “will help tilt the playing field back towards owner-occupiers and provide a powerful signal that this government believes in home-ownership”.
Stamp Duty of £15,000 is currently payable by buyers of a property costing exactly £500,000.
Any idea on timescales? Could this cause additional stagnation in the market?
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I read that one of the proposals was to increase the 3% stamp duty levy for BTL purchases to 5%. It will very disappointing if Johnson agrees to this further attack on the PRS. The 3% is already very damaging and although looks like an innocuous number can mean some very serious extra charges. They won’t raise money from it either as it will be a further disincentive. And so they really want zero investment in by private landlords when the UK is forecast to need to house 150,000 new households in the coming year alone?
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