Stamp duty: How the rich avoid paying it | This is Money

Stamp duty: How the rich avoid paying it | This is Money

The Mail on Sunday's Property Editor (pictured right) gives his verdict on the Budget's failure to close a stamp duty loophole...

How difficult is it to clamp down on rich stamp duty dodgers, who are often from overseas, keeping a virtually unused investment bolthole in London (and making a thoroughly unwelcome contribution to house price inflation as well)?
Extremely difficult, it would appear.

The Budget addressed a few minor stamp duty dodges favoured by professional developers - the subsales rules, the alternative finance reliefs and the rules for exchanges of land - but did nothing to stop the rich buying their houses through companies.