Stamp duty is one of the most hated taxes in the country. That’s partially because it’s for large amounts, levied all at once: it hurts a lot more to hand over £8000 in one lump sum than it does to have it taken from you over the course of a year. It’s also because it is a tax which is broken at a very fundamental level. Unlike nearly every other tax, stamp duty (technically called Stamp Duty Land Tax, SDLT) is valued at a percentage of the total value of the house, with the percentage increasing as the value increases. That leads to some very strange effects on the housing market as people revalue their houses to avoid hitting the thresholds:
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