Amanda Perrotton explains everything you always wanted to know about stamp duty land tax.
In a straightforward land transaction, stamp duty land tax (SDLT) is charged on the money paid for the property by the purchaser. Introduced in the Finance Act 2003 it largely replaced Stamp Duty with effect from 1 December 2003. It is a self-assessed transfer tax charged on land transactions.
In 2015, the Scottish replaced SDLT with the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax and in Wales it was replaced in 2018 with Land Transaction Tax. Unlike Stamp Duty, SDLT required a return to be filed and so provided HMRC with the ability to enquire into an SDLT return and raise assessments to recover what they considered to be unpaid SDLT.
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