Item — HN Reader

> The government is heavily subsidising house purchasing... I'm paying (through high taxes) for homes that I don't live

How so? Taxes on property purchases, especially in London, generate significant income for the government - according to http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/stamp-duty-burden-on-l..., London house buyers paid more than £3 billion in stamp duty in 2014, with one London borough (Westminster) contributing more than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together, and the most expensive London property (in Belgravia) raising more than the whole of Liverpool.

3 comments

The government (with Right to Buy, Help to Buy, Help to Buy ISAs etc) is subsidising house purchases, but only for first-time buyers.

So it is skewing the market in their favour as opposed to landlords and speculators.

That's a good thing in my opinion.

Not really, as I wrote above, it's using my money to pay for other people's homes. It's also increasing the demand for housing, which in turn pushes the prices higher, encouraging speculators and helping them.

Well, it's also using your money to pay for roads you don't use. That's like the concept of taxes.

But it also allows "normal" people to buy houses apposed to just rich foreign people.

The roads are for everyone to use. The houses aren't.

It is helping existing speculators, indirectly, but it's altering the balance of who's in the market.

I would assume that most of the subsidies are for properties that have very low stamp duty.

However, if it's true that the subsidy exactly offsets the stamp duty, then I agree that this would be amazing - basically a tax subsidy for the poor.

Why would a government discourage transactions? Shouldn't we encourage people to move closer to work/school?

Property transaction taxes are taxes on the precariously employed.