George Osborne gets £1.2bn stamp duty windfall

The Treasury took a stonking £1.2bn in stamp duty last month, figures showed today.

The windfall is expected to help Britain borrow £15bn less than expected this year.

HMRC figures show that stamp duty receipts were 36.5% higher last month than a year ago.

VAT receipts were up 6.4% last year to £10.2bn. However, corporation tax plunged 8.1% at £7.2bn.

Lucian Cook, head of UK residential research at Savills, told the London Evening Standard: “We have seen more activity generally and a pick-up in transactions, and that is likely to be weighted to London and the South-East. Property prices are much higher and more transactions are falling into the 3% to 7% bands.

“Over a 10-year period, stamp duty revenues from London have jumped 114% while transaction levels have fallen 35%. The effective rate of stamp duty in London in 2012-13 was 3.6%, with buyers paying an average £16,000. Stamp duty is increasingly becoming a London tax.”