Tories consider stamp duty cut to boost election chances

RISHI SUNAK is reportedly thinking about cutting stamp duty in the autumn statement as part of a pre-election giveaway to voters.

The Treasury has reportedly worked up a proposal to raise the threshold at which housebuyers start paying the tax from £250,000 to £300,000.

“We don’t really have an offer on housing. Home ownership is key to driving economic growth and is at the heart of Conservative values. Stamp duty would send a signal to voters that we get it and we want to help,” a senior Tory told The Times.

It would mean nearly half of all people buying homes would pay no stamp duty, saving up to £2,500, and would cost the exchequer £3 billion a year by 2028-29.

With the Conservatives still trailing Labour in the polls, the Prime Minister is not expected to call a general election until late in the year, giving the Government the chance to fit in an autumn statement in which it could offer further sweeteners to voters.

In the previous two fiscal events, Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, chose to cut the main rate of employer National Insurance contributions by two percentage points on both occasions.

However, these National Insurance cuts appear to have done little for the Tories’ polling numbers, and the tax burden is still on track to hit its highest level since 1948 as a result of Mr Sunak’s decision while chancellor to freeze tax thresholds from April 2022.

With the Prime Minister setting out a “long-term ambition” to end the “double taxation” of work by eventually abolishing National Insurance, ministers hope that an autumn statement could marry a further cut to the tax together with a stamp reduction.

Currently, people start paying stamp duty at 5 per cent of the value of a property over £250,000, with the rate rising to 10 per cent beyond £925,000 and as much as 12 per cent for properties worth more than £1.5 million.

If the stamp duty threshold was raised to £300,000, the biggest benefit would be for house buyers in the south of the country where property prices are highest, but it would also mean the average property in every region outside London, the southeast and the east of England would be beneath the threshold.