Tuesday 5th December 2006
Independent mortgage broker John Charcol has claimed that increases to the stamp duty threshold are a "disadvantage" for first time buyers.
The increase in the minimum price at which stamp duty is charged, from £120,000 to £125,000, was deemed "unfair" by John Charcol.
Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at the firm, said: "The current system is both hugely unfair and significantly distorts the market around all the threshold levels."
"The nominal £5,000 increase in the initial stamp duty threshold level seen in this years budget simply served to disadvantage first time buyers," he added.
Mr Boulger suggested that tax might be calculated only on the percentage of a price which lay above the threshold, rather than on the full price of the house.
In this way, he said, a small increase in rates might mean the same amount of revenue overall without the fixing of prices to undercut the rate boundaries.
A recent poll commissioned by the Council of Mortgage Lenders found that 60 per cent of people believe the government should be doing more to help first time buyers to get on the property ladder.
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