You are here: cherry > Press releases for December 2014 > Comments from Rob Clifford, Chief Executive of mortgage brokers’, If I Were You, and estate agency, CENTURY 21 UK, on today’s changes to the stamp duty land tax system:

04 December 2014

“I agree with the view that the old system of stamp duty was a fundamentally unfair tax so we welcome any reform. However, George Osborne still hasn't done as much as he could to make life easier for first-time buyers and ordinary working people - he could have scrapped stamp duty for homes under £500k, and proposed indexing the remaining thresholds to inflation. That said, the slab system had become an insatiable stealth tax and was grossly distorting the market as selling prices and offers were frequently couched in order to minimise the stamp duty payment. Let's also not forget that stamp duty revenue receipts have more than trebled under the old regime due to price rises and this move certainly goes a fair way to righting that wrong.”