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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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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
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.
