Tax receipts for April to August 2022 for Stamp Duty hit £8.9bn, around a third higher than in 2021.
Lower receipts in 2021 were thanks to the temporary stamp duty holiday and lower sales following the Covid-19 pandemic, the government said.
August 2021 saw £1.6bn paid by buyers, the second highest amount in any month on record after December 2021.
The figures come ahead of Friday’s ‘mini Budget’ in which the Chancellor is reportedly considering another stamp duty holiday.
Jonathan Stinton, head of intermediary relationships at Coventry Building Society, said: “If the rumours of a cut to Stamp Duty are true, it’s good news for homebuyers who are being squeezed harder and harder by the tax on buying a home.
“Buying an average-priced home in England now comes with a Stamp Duty kicker of £5,579. That’s more than three times the £1,566 tax bill for an average-priced home in 2014 when the thresholds and rates were last set.”
Helen Morrissey, senior pensions and retirement analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown: “Stamp Duty receipts continue to surge, topping a whopping £8.9bn between April and August this year.
“This is not only a sign of a housing market in rude health but also down to the lingering after-effects of the stamp duty holiday, which ended in September last year.
“Whether we continue to see such steep increases in Stamp Duty over the coming months remains to be seen as the effects of this holiday are stripped out of the figures and soaring interest rates and cost of living crunch put a dampener on our plans to buy that dream home.
“There are also growing signs that homes are taking longer to sell which could also mean more would-be sellers are putting off the decision to put their homes on the market – this means we could soon see fewer sales feeding into lower receipts in the coming months.”
