2014年经济学人 印花税 削减印花税如何让房屋购买方受损

Stamp duty

Unexpected bills

Why stamp-duty tax cuts may hurt homebuyers

“TODAY I'm cutting stamp duty for millions of homebuyers,” crowed George Osborne, the chancellor¹ of the exchequer², on December 3rd when announcing reforms to stamp duty, a tax on buying property. Yet hidden in the forecasts of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is an assumption that implies most homebuyers will be made worse off by the tax cut. For every one percentage-point reduction in the tax, the OBR assumes that house prices will rise by 1.4%, leaving buyers with a bigger overall bill.

At first sight, this seems odd. Economics suggests that the sensitivity of buyers and sellers to changes in the price—“price elasticity”, in the jargon—influences who ends up paying most for “transaction taxes” like stamp duty. Housing supply is not very responsive to price: it is hard to build homes quickly to take advantage of a price spike³. That means, according to economic reasoning, that, if stamp duty is cut, you would expect prices to rise and sellers to benefit more than buyers.

What economists⁴ would not expect, though, is that buyers would end up absolutely worse off. So why are buyers left with a bigger overall bill? Mortgages are key to solving the mystery. Most buyers are what economists call “credit-constrained”. What they can splash out on a new place is limited by what they can borrow. And the amount they can borrow depends in part on how much cash they can put down as a deposit.

Stamp duty—a bill which must be paid immediately on buying property—drains that cash. When it is cut, buyers can put down higher deposits and borrow more. As a result, demand rises, pushing up the price enough to more than offset⁵ the benefit of the tax cut.

If the OBR is right, buyers of a property that cost ￡300,000 before the change in stamp duty now face ￡4,000 less tax but a price ￡5,600 higher. Buyers who were not previously⁶ in the market but can now afford a deposit will benefit, but this group is small. The main winners are homeowners, who benefit from higher house prices.

There is a parallel with the government's flagship intervention⁷ in the housing market: Help to Buy. That scheme aims to assist buyers who cannot afford deposits by providing them with government loans. But its biggest effect is to boost demand and hence prices. Homeowners keep winning from government policy.

1 chancellor   

n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长

参考例句：

• They submitted their reports to the Chancellor yesterday.他们昨天向财政大臣递交了报告。
• He was regarded as the most successful Chancellor of modern times.他被认为是现代最成功的财政大臣。

2 exchequer   

n.财政部；国库

参考例句：

• In Britain the Chancellor of the Exchequer deals with taxes and government spending.英国的财政大臣负责税务和政府的开支。
• This resulted in a considerable loss to the exchequer.这使国库遭受了重大损失。

3 spike   

n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效

参考例句：

• The spike pierced the receipts and held them in order.那个钉子穿过那些收据并使之按顺序排列。
• They'll do anything to spike the guns of the opposition.他们会使出各种手段来挫败对手。

4 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 offset   

n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿

参考例句：

• Their wage increases would be offset by higher prices.他们增加的工资会被物价上涨所抵消。
• He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。

6 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

7 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。