Here’s how much the UK government made from property taxes last year
Anyone who thought this year's stamp duty hike on second homes was a bit harsh, we suggest you look away now: new research has suggested the government made a whopping £67bn on stamp duty, council tax and business rates last year.
According to figures from the Taxpayers' Alliance (TPA), the government raked in £1.8bn or 2.8 per cent more in 2015 than they did the year before. And that's before the stamp duty hike, which adds three per cent to taxes on second homes, came into force this April.
In fact, so vast was the amount made by the government, it represented an average of 3.6 per cent of the UK's GDP.
Read more: Stamp duty – unless we’re still at war with France, it should go
The TPA said most of the rise was down to stamp duty, which rose £1.5bn in 2015. Meanwhile, council tax receipts fell by £100m.
The regions with the highest tax burden were the South West and the East of England, where property taxes made up four per cent of GDP. Although the region at the bottom of the scale, Northern Ireland, didn't have a significantly lower figure: taxes made up three per cent of GDP there.
"We often hear about the impact of high property taxes on the overheated London housing market, but the truth is that they are a massive burden in every region of the UK," said Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TPA.
"High rates of stamp duty, business rates and council tax are a significant barrier to getting on the housing ladder or growing a business – and this is exacerbated by restrictive planning policies which mean firms can't expand and we are building nowhere near enough homes."
Stamp duty on second homes was hiked this year to cool the overheated market. In the intervening period, though, house prices have begun to fall, which experts have largely put down to the result of the EU referendum.
