Sir, – John Thompson (February 16th) misses the point that many buyers of houses are sellers as well, simply engaged in the process of “moving house”.
If, as a simple example, in recent years they bought a new house with the same market value as the house that they sold,the trade left them out of pocket by a significant amount, equivalent to the stamp duty that applied.
So this stamp duty sum was not magic money that appeared out of nowhere: it was for anyone moving home a reduction in personal wealth, or more appropriately, an increase in personal debt.
Those of us home-buyers, largely urban and largely in a particular age bracket, who were compelled to pay it in order to buy a home, should not have to pay a cent of the new property tax. – Yours, etc,