The stamp duty surcharge for landlords and others buying second homes brought in £1.5bn for the Treasury in the final three months of last year, jumping 31% from the previous quarter.
The sharp rise in this tax receipt comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves lifted the surcharge on second property purchases from 3% to 5% overnight in the October Budget.
This analysis comes from Coventry Building Society after crunching quarterly stamp duty data released by HMRC, where overall receipts lifted 16% quarter-on-quarter.
The mutual adds that more than 30,000 first-time buyers paid the tax last year, despite the nil-rate thresholds being temporarily extended.
First time buyers (FTB) currently pay stamp duty if their home costs more than £425,000, which is set to fall back to £300,000 at the end of March after Reeves decided not to extend this temporary relief in her autumn Budget.
The building society also points out that the average FTB home in London is £444,548, meaning the stamp duty on an average-priced home for these buyers in the capital will shoot to £7,222 from £972 in April.
Coventry Building Society head of intermediary relationships Jonathan Stinton says: “There’s a balance the Treasury needs to strike between collecting more tax receipts and keeping the property market moving.
“Since the Budget it’s been landlords who have been squeezed harder by the taxman. But the real sting in the stamp duty tail is the end of the temporary thresholds in April.
“Homebuyers might not be fully aware of how much these changes will eat into their funds from April.
“This is especially true for FTBs in more expensive parts of the country where the steep hike to the tax bill could derail plans to buy a first home.”
