Stamp Duty tax receipt trends revealed in new reports
Newsletter issue – January 2025
Among the changes we saw at Budget 2024 related to Stamp Duty - the tax you pay when you buy a new property.
And a raft of new statistics has been released in the last couple of weeks, suggesting a significant trend downwards in terms of the amount of money the Treasury is receiving from this form of tax in the last couple of years. But on the flip side, other figures show signs of an increase in the later part of 2024.
The higher rates for people owning more than one home - and for companies, is set to rise from 3% to 5% above the standard residential rates, following the Chancellor's Budget in October. The single rate of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) payable by companies and 'non-natural persons' buying homes for more than £500,000, will also go up from 15% to 17%.
In its latest annual report, the Government revealed that total stamp tax receipts fell between financial year 2022-23 and 2023-24. There was a 23% drop - falling from £19.13 billion to £14.81billion. And SDLT receipts fell from £15.36billion to £11.61billion from tax year 2022-23 to 2023-24 - a reduction of 24%.
The latest quarterly figures for 2024 were also released, showing a rise in the latter part of the year for total SDLT transactions. They were 15% higher than in Q3 2024 (July to September) than the previous quarter, and 8% higher than in Q3 2023. This report also showed residential property transactions in Q3 2024 were 17% higher than in the previous quarter, and 9% higher than in Q3 2023.
In terms of total SDLT receipts, in Q3 2024 these were 14% higher than in the previous quarter, and 6% higher than Q3 2023. Residential property receipts in Q3 2024 rose by 20% compared to the previous quarter, and were 5% higher than Q3 2023, according to the Government data.
And, finally, additional figures showed that about £1.31bn was paid in SDLT in November, slightly lower than the £1.35bn intake in October.
