Tory bid for £300 stamp duty cut
THOUSANDS of Scots homebuyers would be at least £300 better off under a Tory proposal to overhaul stamp duty rates.
The party will today challenge the SNP to introduce a £90million tax cut when Holyrood seizes control of major new powers in April.
Nationalist ministers are planning to hit families with a new ‘super tax’ which will force anyone purchasing a property for more than £254,000 to pay more than buyers in the rest of the UK.
But the Tories have drawn up an amendment to be debated in Holyrood next year, forcing the SNP either to perform a U-turn or vote it down.
Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Gavin Brown said: ‘This is a tax cut for families and first-time buyers who want to get on the property ladder. And it’s also a tax cut for people wanting to move up the property ladder. The SNP has to act now. Scottish families are in danger of having to pay a heavy tax on home-buying purely because this Left-wing SNP Government thinks it knows best about how to spend our money.
‘This is affordable, it’s fair and [Finance Secretary] John Swinney now needs to change his illjudged plans for a tax on aspiration.’
Earlier this month, Chancellor George Osborne announced reform of the stamp duty system, making it cheaper to buy 98 per cent of properties.
Anyone buying a home worth between £125,001 and £250,000 now pays 2 per cent in tax. On houses between £250,001 and £925,000, they pay 2 per cent on the slice from £125,001 to £250,000 and then 5 per cent on the amount from £250,001 to £925,000. A property between £925,001 and £1.5million is taxed at 10 per cent, and on more than £1.5million it has risen to 12 per cent.
But from April, under SNP plans, the zero rate in Scotland will be slightly higher at £135,000, with a 2 per cent level between £135,001 and £250,001. It will then jump to a staggering 10 per cent between £250,001 and £1million and 12 per cent for anything over that.
The alternative proposal from the Tories will raise the starting rate to £140,000, with a new 5 per cent band between £250,000 and £500,000.
A Scottish Government spokesman said the SNP plans would ensure more than 80 per cent of Scots buyers would pay less than under the UK Government’s plans, or would pay no tax at all.