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📨 Stamp Duty discourages moves that would put people in homes and jobs that suit them better. 🗑️ Council Tax bills still rest on 1991 valuations, even though prices have diverged massively since then. Since 1995, house prices have risen 7.3-fold in Inner London but only 4.2-fold in the North East.

Council Tax was regressive by design, but 35 years of price changes have doubled down on the way it bears down hardest on cheaper homes. By 2030-31, the typical effective annual tax rate (Council Tax plus Stamp Duty) on a £100k home will be 1.5%. On a £1m home it will be just 0.6%.

London is the clear winner. In 2024-25, property taxes were 0.8% of the value of housing in the North East, double London's 0.4%. Relative to its housing wealth, London underpaid £3.1bn in tax. Taxing the rest of England at London's rate would be a £12.3bn tax cut.