Stamp duty - what's it all about, eh?

[David Cochrane]

The Sunday Independent (or namely some of their journalists trying to sell their houses) want stamp duty abolished, Fine Gael might do it. Fianna Fail won't. Have we worked out who the Sindo are now going to support for the elections?

Is stamp duty a serious issue for the election, and does it need to be reformed? Should we expect an announcement on it this weekend?

FG stamp duty plans could ruin housing market, claims Cowen - Irish Times

Fine Gael proposals on reform of stamp duty could wreck the housing market, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen warned.

Mr Cowen made his remarks on a Fine Gael amendment to the Finance Bill, that any property with a value of less than €450,000 would be exempt from stamp duty provided the purchaser was a first-time buyer and that he or she retained the property as his or her principal private residence for not less than five years.

[KingKane]

Repeating myself but what is the basis of Cowen's expert knowledge of the housing market?

I think it was informative to listen to Brian Cowen on Saturday suggesting that Fine Gael's stamp duty proposals would be some sort of Godzilla to the Irish housing market. It might have occurred to Cowen to tell this to his colleague McDowell who was the one to put the skids under the market last autumn. Cowen devoted quite a while to explain why people won't buy houses because 3 years from now! because the stamp duty would be less.

It might have slipped by Cowen's notice but people have to live somewhere in the interim period if they were to hold off buying their house and that money they pay out in rent isn't going into the equity of their house unlike what their mortgage payments would be. Telling people in advance what the government are going to do aids stability in the market, uncertainty as to what the government is going to do is what causes destabilisation.

The real people Cowen was concerned about and who might decide to hold off on buying houses was not owner occupiers but investors. FF concern about housing is more at needs of the suppliers who provide so much funding for the party and not the average Seamus and Joan looking for a home.

Of course, Cowen told us that the proposals smacked of people who had no knowledge of how the housing market worked. Well, Cowen's primary knowledge of the housing market is based on his experience as a solicitor and that would have been doing conveyancing, a field that was insisting on charging a set % fee of the purchase similar to estate agents (and how the stamp duty system operates today) despite there being no extra work involved in a €150,000 house than in a €300,000 one. Nice work if you can get it.

Oddly enough I had a similar thought on Wednesday

[Norfolk Enchants]

A graduated stamp duty system is equitable and a no-brainer with anybody selling or buying a house the question is always, "why the he!! is it at €381k it becomes all or nothing"? rather than a duty on the excess above a certain threshhold as with most "sophisticated" taxing systems.

[rockofcashel]

David's right, its about a few Sindo idiots, trying to sell houses, and as a paper, trying to shore up property advertising revenues.

Stamp duty is not an issue at the majority of doorsteps.

[FutureTaoiseach]

Did the decision by Cowen not to reform stamp-duty smack in part of his old unfriendly attitude to the PDs (remember "if in doubt leave them out"?) - who were the first to suggest fundamental reform last yr. It may come back to haunt his party being seen as the odd-one-out on this matter. Unclear as of yet which way the Indo will jump but they are making a big deal of this so maybe Cowen should have a change of hard if he values FF's re-election prospects. Hopefully he can be talked around come the election but then again he has arguably boxed himself into such a corner by now that he may not be able to get out of it without a serious loss of face.

[KingKane]

David's right, its about a few Sindo idiots, trying to sell houses, and as a paper, trying to shore up property advertising revenues.

Stamp duty is not an issue at the majority of doorsteps.

roc, it is in Dublin.

[EvotingMachine0197]

I don't have an IT subscription - any know what Cowen's basis is for saying SD reform will undermine the market.

How does he think it will do that?
Does he not know the arse is already gone out of it, or why is he pretending the contrary?

[michael1965]

David's right, its about a few Sindo idiots, trying to sell houses, and as a paper, trying to shore up property advertising revenues.

Stamp duty is not an issue at the majority of doorsteps.

roc, it is in Dublin.

but is it really? For the vast majority of house-holders who haven't bought a house in the last ten years, they don't give a toss. In fact, if anything the system suits them, because the property taxes that they should be paying are instead being paid by someone else. It's sad, it's unfair, but I think it's true.

[qtman]

David's right, its about a few Sindo idiots, trying to sell houses, and as a paper, trying to shore up property advertising revenues.

Stamp duty is not an issue at the majority of doorsteps.

roc, it is in Dublin.

Doubtful.

Its like car insurance for young drivers. When you're 22 (or buying a house) its a big issue, but once you've paid it, you don't give a monkey's anymore.

Stamp Duty will be an electoral issue for people in the process of buying a house in Dublin, but, only so many of those people will be registered to vote (i.e they're on the move) and there aren't that many of them any way.

There is only one real electoral issue:

What's in it for me?

[Dubliner]

The present government needs the current stamp-duty regime so that it can reap stamp duty on the buying and selling of houses caused by its 'decentralisation' scheme.

The money is needed to offset the huge undisclosed costs of the project.