Darling mulls stamp duty suspension
The Treasury yesterday refused to deny reports that the Chancellor has plans to temporarily abolish stamp duty on house purchases.
Yesterday morning, Alistair Darling took to the airwaves and hinted he may try to jump-start the ailing housing market by bringing forward proposals to suspend stamp duty.
Details of the move, which would bring much needed relief to struggling first time home buyers, could emerge as early as October, when Darling unveils his pre-Budget report. A Treasury spokesman did not rule out any future changes to stamp duty.
“At the moment we are not substantiating this but things change in politics and economics,” the spokesman said.
Darling, in a BBC Radio interview yesterday, said he would be announcing “further measures in the autumn to help people with housing and – through them – the housing market”.
But news that the housing tax could be dropped was criticised by the property industry for being a quick fix.
Charlie Ellingworth, director of PropertyVision, which provides advice on buying and renting property, said: “This smacks of tidying deckchairs on the Titanic. Why does the government think it can do something about the fall in the property market when it failed to do anything about it on the way up? What we need is liquidity in the market and that must be provided by banks.”
Possible plans to suspend stamp duty could form the backbone of Labour’s economic recovery programme, which Gordon Brown could announce in the autumn. It is thought the plans will include arange of measures to help the taxpayer cope with tougher economic times as the price of food and fuel surges.
Yesterday Darling was candid on the problems facing Britons as the economy lurches dangerously close to recession.
He said: “There’s no doubt today that what is happening now is far more profound and will be more prolonged than people thought 12 months ago.”