Chancellor Alistair Darling announced a stamp duty of 5% instead of the current 4% in order to make sure that first time home buyers do not have to spend on stamp duty at all, if the house is within £250,000.
So what does this mean for the luxury home buyers who spend more than a million pounds? Well, anyone who buys a home which would cost more than £1 million would have to pay a stamp duty of £50,000 instead of the current £40,000.
If your house falls below that or if you are not a first time buyer, then you would be paying a stamp duty of 5% instead of 4%. The flip side however is that people spending a lot of money on stamp duty may try alternative methods to avoid spending and thus still go ahead and cheat the government.
One of the alternative route is to set up an off-shore account, which is widely being spoken about. Off shore accounts are usually viewed with suspicion, and many governments of other countries do not divulge information about the account holders, which makes it easy for people to evade tax.
Via: Homes Go Fast
