# stamp duty



## LB (May 14, 2002)

House for sale at Â£300k, which means a stamp duty of Â£9k. What's to stop you (assuming friendly seller) agreeing a price of Â£250k for the house, thus paying Â£2.5k stamp duty and a seperate transaction of Â£50k for something else, let's say their TV. I'm not talking about aportioning as I'm told you can only do this for a realistic figure, less than 10% of property value otherwise the Inland Revenue would investigate.

Anyone have a view?


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## raysman (May 12, 2006)

its called tax avoidance ,just paid 13.5k stamp on two houses ,and now have to find 27k for a new industrial building ,robbing bastards the lot of em :evil:


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## vernan (May 27, 2002)

The IR etc are not stupid. Really. They have worked this trick out, and they don't **** about according to estate agents I've talked to.


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## kwaTTro (Jul 5, 2005)

not been involved with any house purchases myself - but wouldn't your idea mean getting independent valuations for 50k less too - don't HMRC require valuations or do they just trust what you file for is correct?

go to moneysavingexpert forum - i'm sure some there would give you more info....


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## Karcsi (Mar 6, 2003)

I think that happens often, but mostly when the price is quite close to the threshold. The buyer pays the additional 20/30k for the 'contents' of the house.

I was once talking to an agent, when behind me they two other agents started chatting openly about what could be done with they sales - two houses being sold by the same agent, the owner of one buying the other. They could use the buyer's house to offset the price of the seller's house (effectively deflating the prices of both houses) and get round the higher stamp duty charge. At that point, I turned round and said they should be careful what they said as I worked for the Inland Revenue. It wasn't true, but you should have seen them shat their pants!


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## Karcsi (Mar 6, 2003)

vernan said:


> The IR etc are not stupid. Really. They have worked this trick out, and they don't **** about according to estate agents I've talked to.


I would believe for a while it was a free for all - HMRC were not checking anything as they were having problems with with their new stamp duty IT system.


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## Patrick Graystone (Feb 5, 2006)

50k is just to high mate, a few years ago you could get away with "fixtures and fittings" which would come to about 10k (buying at 250k + 10k for sofa's, cabinets etc) but its pretty much illegal now......gonna have to swallow that huge amount im afraid.


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## LB (May 14, 2002)

surely you can sell your house at whatever price you wanted; does it actually say somewhere in the 'house selling rules' that it has to be at or near market value?

What would stop me advertising my old tv in the local paper for Â£50k?

I'm sure there are legal reasons why this can't be done, but until this arse of a rule is changed I, and I'm sure lots of other people, will try to avoid it.

Â£250,000 house = Â£2,500 stamp duty
Â£250,001 house = Â£7,500 stamp duty

just bloody crazy; if we have to pay stamp duty then it should at least be stepped, so that we would only pay the within the band and not on all of the property.


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

LB said:


> What would stop me advertising my old tv in the local paper for Â£50k?
> 
> .


"I'll give you Â£50,000 for your telly."










As deplorable as everyone moving up the property ladder finds it, Stamp Duty is a necessary evil if we are to adequately cover the national bills for education, health, immigration and expensive spurious overseas invasions.

Just consider it an unavoidable expense of moving.

_or get them to relist the house at Â£250,000, offer asking prcie and also make a charitable donation of Â£50K into their favorite Channel Islands cause._ :wink: :wink: :wink:


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## TTwiggy (Jul 20, 2004)

raysman said:


> its called tax avoidance ,just paid 13.5k stamp on two houses ,and now have to find 27k for a new industrial building ,robbing bastards the lot of em :evil:


can anyone provide a 'smallest violin in the world' smiley for Raysman please? :wink:


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## Kell (May 28, 2002)

When we bought ours we did exaclty this. THe house was priced at Â£249,000 and you bought the shell. Everything else was extra and didn't count towards the house price. Carpets, lighting, extra kitchen Island units etc etc.

But this seems to only be legal on new builds.


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## TTonyTT (Apr 24, 2006)

I did a lot of research a few months back when we were looking at moving, and would have paid approaching Â£30k in stamp duty.

There is *no* legal way around it once you're more than approx Â£10k over the banding limit. For Â£10k you can argue with HMRC and maybe get away with it as "carpets, curtains, kitchen appliances, plants in the garden, and a flea-ridden dog". Any more than that, and Mr Customs Man will be looking closely.

They (HMRC) know what you buy/sell for. They know what similar properties in the same area have sold for. They can easily get an independent valuation on the "market" price for a property where they thing the deal might be a little dodgy. And tracing money flows is what they do, so don't think about paying 2 separate amounts ... from the same person (buyer) to the same person (seller). And Estate Agents (would you trust one of those?) quite possibly have an obligation to report any dodgy dealing.

I found one possible avoidance method. Which was entirely dodgy and exposed me to a risk of Â£12k for 9 months.

So we didn't move, and I bought a TT2 with the money we saved on stamp duty. "Result" !!


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## Kell (May 28, 2002)

TTonyTT said:


> And Estate Agents (would you trust one of those?) quite possibly have an obligation to report any dodgy dealing.


To be fair, if you're talking about knocking 50k off the price of the house then the Estate agent loses a fair chunk of commission too - so they're harldy likely to encourage it in the first place.

Guess you just have to factor it into your calculations. :?


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## raysman (May 12, 2006)

and dont forget the greedy b....tards take 40%of anything over 350k when you pop it :evil:


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## jampott (Sep 6, 2003)

I wish my house had been anywhere near the stamp duty threshold. :roll:


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## TTonyTT (Apr 24, 2006)

jampott said:


> I wish my house had been anywhere near the stamp duty threshold. :roll:


With that line-up of vehicles, who needs a house??


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## jampott (Sep 6, 2003)

TTonyTT said:


> jampott said:
> 
> 
> > I wish my house had been anywhere near the stamp duty threshold. :roll:
> ...


Tee hee. That's a progression. I've only got the S4, the rest have been and gone. TT 2001 til 2003, Z 2003 til 2004, S4 2004 til approx 2007


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## TTonyTT (Apr 24, 2006)

That's a progression I like!! S4 - top car 

I remember yearning after the original S2 avant . If there was any way I'd be able to feed an S6 for 25k miles a year, I'd probably have that in preference to the TT2.


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## Neil (May 7, 2002)

I'm sure that when I bought my house (about 5 yrs ago) I had to sign something to say that the purchase was not part of a chain of transactions that would take me over the Â£250k limit. Therefore ruling out any "Â£50k for a TV" scams....


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## jampott (Sep 6, 2003)

TTonyTT said:


> That's a progression I like!! S4 - top car
> 
> I remember yearning after the original S2 avant . If there was any way I'd be able to feed an S6 for 25k miles a year, I'd probably have that in preference to the TT2.


The "old" S6 is a very underestimated car, I think. The new one is simply drop dead gorgeous, but I fear quite an expensive purchase.

I wouldn't fancy 25k mile a year in either a V8 or V10. Fortunately I bought the S4 after clocking up 24k miles in 10 months of Z ownership, but safe in the knowledge that my mileage would plummet. I've managed 19k in 19 months 

Its a great car, but I'm already ordering a replacement


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## scott28tt (Jul 30, 2002)

We're just selling our place at the minute, and if stamp duty didn't exist we'd have probably got 260k for it, as it goes we got precisely 250k for it.

And we've bought for 320k, we just had to factor the near-10k into our buying budget.

The government don't need this money - I read on the BBC news site a week or two ago that they now collect more than 4 times tha amount anually than when they did in 1997. Can we move this to the flame room please so I can swear? :x


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## vlastan (May 6, 2002)

A friend of mine has an interesting view on this tax. If it didn't exist house prices would have been higher, so you would still have to pay the same amount.

What do you all think about this?


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## Boris71 (May 25, 2004)

As defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

So how can it be right to tax someone who merely wishes to exercise one of their Human Rights - i.e to have shelter?!?

I could understand if it was for a second home or if the purhase and sale of a property was for purely commercial reasons, but this is downright immoral!!!!
And having no sliding scale is just rubbing salt into the wound!


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## Karcsi (Mar 6, 2003)

Tell that to the hundreds of millions of homeless in the world. :roll:

All indirect taxes are ludicrous if used solely for the purpose of raising revenue - rather than a tool to encourage certain behaviours e.g. reducing emissions.

You pay tax on your income, then you pay tax again on it when you purchase a house, and then your children pay tax on it again with you pop it. That could mean, that of your original earnings only some (very roughly) 25% could end up inherited by your kids. That is scandalous, but because of the blatant penny pinching premise of it all, not because of any human rights we may or may not have.


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## Boris71 (May 25, 2004)

My point is, this Government was very keen to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights; adopt it's protocols even though strict adherence has and will continue to, result in decisons which fly in the face of all that is common sense - and yet by the same token are more than happy to, as you rightly say, penny pinch by taxing us at every available opportunity, inspite of it being very far removed from their credo!

Cake and eating it spring to mind!


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## digimeisTTer (Apr 27, 2004)

TTonyTT said:


> I did a lot of research a few months back when we were looking at moving, and would have paid approaching Â£30k in stamp duty.
> 
> There is *no* legal way around it once you're more than approx Â£10k over the banding limit. For Â£10k you can argue with HMRC and maybe get away with it as "carpets, curtains, kitchen appliances, plants in the garden, and a flea-ridden dog". Any more than that, and Mr Customs Man will be looking closely.
> 
> ...


You have no idea what your talking about and there always has to be one that makes a derogatory sweeping generalisations :roll: :roll:


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

digimeisTTer said:


> TTonyTT said:
> 
> 
> > I did a lot of research a few months back when we were looking at moving, and would have paid approaching Â£30k in stamp duty.
> ...


Bet you know a few <<creative solutions>> in your business eh Digi? :wink:

Care to share?


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## TTonyTT (Apr 24, 2006)

digimeisTTer said:


> You have no idea what your talking about and there always has to be one that makes a derogatory sweeping generalisations :roll: :roll:


 [smiley=toilet.gif]

Ooops, what was I thinking when I wrote that. Obviously nothing very clever.

I most humbly apologise for making such a derogatory sweeping generalisation. I should have course have prefaced it with "in my experience", as in, "in my experience, estate agents are *******, ********* and ****** who will only ******* you in order to ******* their own **** ******** *******".

That's better. Neither sweeping, nor derogatory, nor unfounded.


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## digimeisTTer (Apr 27, 2004)

TTonyTT said:


> Ooops, what was I thinking when I wrote that. Obviously nothing very clever.


Correct!

Apology accepted, and remember whatever your experience with an estate agent YOU CHOSE HIM :lol: :lol:


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## thejepster (Mar 29, 2005)

digimeisTTer said:


> Correct!
> 
> Apology accepted, and remember whatever your experience with an estate agent YOU CHOSE HIM :lol: :lol:


Unfortunately correct... but that's before all the issues arise! :roll: Any chap can look good, and say the right things on your sofa, but when you leave you house to them to sell, you don't really know what they're going to do or not do.... :?


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## jonhaff (May 20, 2002)

its not the estate agent you need to worry about its the legal obligation of your solicitor who has to log and pay the stamp duty and they would be in big trouble too if they helped you aviod it with an overflated 'contents' payment.


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

scott28tt said:


> The government don't need this money


You're joking right? The govenment has a budget deficit for the last quarter is Â£3Bn higher this year than it was last for the same quarter last year. Oh yes, the government is well positioned to start giving up tax revenues ;-)


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## scott28tt (Jul 30, 2002)

clived said:


> scott28tt said:
> 
> 
> > The government don't need this money
> ...


My point was that they now make sooooo much more from stamp duty than when they came to power.

Whilst I accept that revenues from taxation need to be generated by some means, this is just another example of the 'stealthy' tactics employed by Messrs Blair/Brown. They should not be making up shortfalls from the tax that is stamp duty - it has to be one of the most unfair taxes we pay.


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## vlastan (May 6, 2002)

scott28tt said:


> clived said:
> 
> 
> > scott28tt said:
> ...


Is road tax fair then? Only a tiny amount of it is used for the roads. The rest is normally used to employ soldiers to kills Iraqis, Afgans etc. :lol:


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## GHuTTch (Dec 4, 2003)

those posters advocating selling your telling for Â£50k to avoid stamp duty should be aware that you would then be eligble for capital gains tax on the TV, which at 40% (less any annual allowances/writing down allowances you may have) is still likey to be more than the incremental stamp duty you would pay.

The b#ggers got you every way. :evil:

And IMHO Gordon Brown will be remembered as one of the worst chancellors in history.


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