Nearly 70,000 first-time buyers claim stamp duty relief
Stamp duty receipts continue to hold up, despite slower sales volumes and the introduction of reliefs for most first-time buyers in last year’s autumn budget, new figures from HMRC show.
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Quarterly receipts for Q1 2018 were £1.8bn, taking annual receipts for the 12 months to March to £9.3bn. This was down slightly from the £9.5bn collected through 2017, but notable for the fact it is still more than double annual revenue from five years ago.
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Transaction volumes in the first quarter were 238,200, the lowest level since Q1 2013. The level of liable transactions – those where stamp duty was paid - fell across all price bands, with the larger falls being seen below £500,000, though this was mostly due to the introduction of first-time buyers’ relief late last year.
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The relief means that first-time buyers purchasing a property up to £300,000 pay no stamp duty. Further relief is available for purchases up to £500,000 to help first-time buyers in more expensive locations such as London. Since the policy was announced, 69,000 transactions have claimed relief, with nearly 13,000 of those in the South East.
A further 18,000 first-time buyers claimed the relief in London and the East of England.
HMRC estimated that the total amount of stamp duty relieved was £159 million; half of which (49%) was seen in London and the South East.
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