According to data from HMRC, this was £2.6bn more than the receipts for July last year.
The department said the high income was down to the general rise in transactions during the stamp duty holiday as well as the 14-day payment window which meant transactions completed in late June were not settled until early July.
In July, residential transactions rose 4.2 per cent annually to 73,740. This was a 63 per cent fall compared to June when there were 198,240 residential transactions completed.
June’s activity was more than double that of the same month in the previous year, likely due to the tapering of the stamp duty holiday which saw the threshold for the tax relief lowered from £500,000 to £250,000 from 1 July.
Helen Morrissey, senior pensions and retirement analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “This data shows the enormous impact the pandemic continues to have. Total tax receipts were up £84.7bn compared to a year before, though this is largely down to deferment measures put in place to help individuals and businesses through difficult times.
“A strong housing market saw stamp duty surge to ever higher levels as buyers tried to get their transactions over the line before the stamp duty holiday relaxed in early July. Whether we will see housing market activity drop in the coming months, only time will tell.”
