Housing taxes set to double as property price boom continues
SOARING house prices will push up inheritance tax and stamp duty payments to around double their current level over the next five years, officials estimated yesterday.
Almost 10 per cent of deaths will result in an inheritance tax bill by 2018-19, double the level this year.
As a result revenues will grow by 11 per cent per year, from £3.1bn last year to £5.8bn in 2018-19.
And stamp duty revenues will leap from £6.9bn in 2012-13 to £18.1bn in 2018-19.
The driver is house prices, which the Office for Budget Responsibility expects to rise 8.6 per cent this year, continuing to rise rapidly over the coming years before slowing down to rise in line with incomes from 2016-17 onwards.
A key threshold will be when prices pass £250,000, when the three per cent stamp duty rate kicks in – a level average prices are set to reach laster this year.