"Stamp duty slashed in Boris Johnson no-deal budget" says a headline in today's Times newspaper. It's an interesting piece, and definitely worth a read.
The long and the short of it is that, as part of an emergency budget for a no-deal Brexit, Johnson is planning to reduce aspects of stamp duty. More specifically, he's considering reversing recent stamp duty increases on more expensive homes as well as abolishing the levy on homes worth less than £500,000.
Leaving his other policies aside for a moment, this is welcome news.
With Johnson now the prime minister of the UK, what does this mean for stamp duty? Portico London estate agents have written a good summary of what the Conservative win means for the property market on their site.
How high stamp duty has impacted the U.K. market
The U.K. is hardly alone in the world in employing stamp duty. You can find some kind of property purchase tax all over the world - in most of Europe and in the US. We've had stamp duty, in its modern iteration, since the 1950s.
