The new Land & Buildings Transaction Tax, which replaces stamp duty, remains controversial, despite revised rates announced by Swinney last week. Scottish Ministers wanted the tax to be markedly more progressive than its UK predecessor, but were caught unprepared when Chancellor George Osborne reformed stamp duty rates in the rest of the UK in last year’s Autumn Statement.
This exposed the new Scottish tax to complaints that it would disadvantage middle-market buyers in Scotland, leading to last week’s hurried revision of the rates, which Swinney said would now mean that half of all transactions were tax-free and that 40,000 buyers would benefit from lower duties.
But the upmarket estate agency Savills claimed this week that even the revised rates could still provoke a crash in Scotland’s property market, by penalising more expensive transactions and creating a knock-on effect on sales of less valuable properties. Tax will be higher in Scotland than in England on transactions above £330,000, with the disparity on a £1m sale approaching £35,000.
Swinney insisted today: ‘Our ultimate aim is to apply a fair tax regime to help grow the economy and increase opportunities for people. I am confident Revenue Scotland is up to that challenge.’