Be Excellent To Each Other

So Scotland are changing their stamp duty from a flat rate to a marginal tax.
"a marginal tax of 2% would apply to the proportion of a transaction between £135,000 and £250,000, while a 10% rate will apply to those between £250,000 and £1m."
So you pay 0% on everything up to £135k, 2% on everything from £135k-250k and 10% on everything above £250k.

Now, i'm all for a marginal tax, it's a much better idea than the current flat rate and thresholds, but fuck me, 10% over £250k is massive, and will only become more and more of an issue in the coming years as house prices rise. Don't expect them to change the rates with inflation, look at the history of Stamp Duty in England.

I was reading about this the other day, but remind me Troops as this is your area.

If you buy a house for £260k, it works out as follows?

On first £135k: £0
On next £115k: £2300
On last 10k: £1000

Total duty: £3300.

Whereas in rUK you'd pay £7800 at 3% flat?

Is that right?

Belgium is even worse, I was thinking about moving there to our head office. Even though the Expat deals have long been stopped I would still get my son into an private school that costs 30,00 Euro a year all paid for by work.

The stamp duty there is horrendous, the cost of the house after 45,000 Euro is subject to either 6 or 12.5%. The higher rate looks to kick in at around 400,000 euro. In addition you pay 1%-2.5% of the rentable value in tax each year but I think this may be their council tax.

If you sell a house you pay 16.5% on any profit if you have lived there under 5 years.

As such most people I know who have moved there rent.

Yes you would pay £7800 on a 260K UK house purchase

I hate stamp duty and see it as little more than a kick in the fucking teeth in addition to the ludicrous complexity and expense involved in buying a house so anything that makes it bite a little less is good; and selfishly this works for me as I'm pretty unlikely to be shelling out for something over £250K.

Do you live in a garage? You can get a really good one for £20k.

Yup, that's right It's when house prices get higher that you'll really get screwed. It's good for the average person at the moment, but unless the thresholds change with inflation (which I can say with 99% certainty, they won't) then it is going to be in interesting discussion in a decade or so!

Goodness, it's almost like a marginal tax for stamp duty makes sense. Imagine that.

I plotted a graph on a log scale:



The intercept of the lines is at £324,000. Anything over than and you start getting more fucked in Scotland.

The difference at £500k is £12,300, and £37,300 at £1m (total payable in Scotland at £1m is £77,300). Shite.

Edit: There's a small misplot there at around £320k. That's just me pissing about with the numbers.

How much you get fucked by stamp duty isn't really the current issue. It's how much you get fucked by the humungous leap in stamp duty when you cross a threshold.

If you buy a house for 250K, it actually costs you 252.5K. If you buy a house for 251K, it actually costs you 258.53K. That's just completely fucking dumb. 1K increase in price is a 6K increase in total cost.

Concur, that is quite bonkers. There should be greater granularity.

Of course, this is an SNP policy aimed entirely at their core supporters, being those that can't afford super-expensive houses. I'm sure someone smarter than me will draw a graph of the overlap.

I probably shouldn't complain as I'd have been a bit better off having just bought my flat, but I wanted to get something similarly sized in the city centre I'd have been quite done over.

I think as a policy aimed at reducing the cost of homes for those on lower incomes funded by those on higher incomes, it's pretty much spot on to be honest. Except, of course, it just makes it cheaper for property magnates to buy up 200K homes to let out.

What's the point in it....? How does anyone afford to move up the housing market in that instance?

We don't pay stamp duty here; we do have to pay a government registration fee though, which is £5.70 per £1000 if recent memory serves!

They rely on the ever increasing house prices, to use the equity to pay the stamp duty.
Good house prices only ever go up!

Bit shitty though, innit.

Very shitty.

If you think that is bad then prepare to have your mind blown

I think that's valid. There are people that I wouldn't trust to behave in that situation.

Is anyone ever really in charge of a cow?

Off the top of my head... you.




"Hey cow...






...






...






JACK OF CLUBS!"

I was thinking of Myp, but yes, that wins.