Backgrounder: Stamp Duty reaction
Reaction to the government's proposal to introduce a stamp duty holiday for homes valued between £125,000 and £175,000 is overwhelmingly negative
The government has announced a stamp duty holiday, but
not everyone thinks this is a reason for celebrating. In fact, reaction to the
move was fairly negative.
The
Times quoted experts saying it was a ‘sticking plaster’. George Buckley,
chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, told the paper that any savings would be
wiped out by one month of price falls.
Chris
Giles at the FT said the policy was ‘unlikely to work’ in terms of getting
the housing market moving upwards again. The paper also drew a distinction
between Gordon Brown’s aims for the policy and Alistair Darling’s.
Others criticized the fact that
the
cut is unfunded, something the government has always thrown as a criticism
at Tory tax plans.
Not everyone thinks it’s a bad idea. The chancellor himself
Alistair
Darling went on Newsnight to attempt to show he thought the policy was a
good idea. But he wasn’t getting much support elsewhere.