More than a third of Aylesbury Vale home buyers are paying stamp duty at the higher rate of 3% or more, new research has found.
Overall, more than 2,500 Vale home buyers paid out £15,797,092 on stamp duty in 2012/13, according to the TaxPayers Alliance.
A total of 87% of revenue generated from stamp duty in the district is for the higher rates of 3% or more.
Stamp duty land tax is applied when a property is bought for more than £125,000. It is applied at 1, 3, 4, 5, or 7% of the total purchase price depending on the property.
Critics claim the 3% rate acts as a barrier for an increasing number of first-time buyers, as well as many hard-working families wanting to buy a new home.
Families buying a home for between £250,000 and £500,000 pay between £7,500 and £15,000 in stamp duty.
With more than £4 billion paid out by families across Britain and £3.6 billion above the 3% rate the Stamp Out Stamp Duty campaign is urging the government to ease up on buyers.
Chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, Matthew Sinclair, said: “Owning your own home is an important milestone, but for many families it seems harder and harder to reach. Ministers have done nothing to ease the burden imposed by stamp duty, which is an unfair double tax that gets in the way of would-be first-time buyers and others thinking about moving.
“Instead they have made things worse with new thresholds and new, higher rates. The government needs to act on ministers’ rhetoric about getting people onto the property ladder and cut this unfair tax.”
