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Property stamp duties and subsidies are becoming a means to redistribute

By making it more expensive to invest in high-end properties, fiscal coffers are boosted while taming the buying frenzy.

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HDB flats, landed property, private housing estate, office buildings, industrial buildings and Central Business District (CBD) skyline, including Singapore Flyer, Marina Bay Sands and Marina Bay Financial Centre, as viewed from the rooftop of Novelty BizCentre on Aug 19, 2021.

The buyer's stamp duty has been a longstanding mechanism to cool the property market, and is now also a useful tool to raise government revenues, says the writer.

PHOTO: ST FILE

Sing Tien Foo

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The

hikes in buyer’s stamp duty (BSD)

announced in Budget 2023 by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong will kill two birds with one stone.

The BSD has been a longstanding mechanism to cool the property market, in raising the transaction cost of property investments and slowing the momentum in the private housing price index growth that has remained positive for 11 straight quarters since 2020.

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