Sir, – I note that the Government believes that a stamp duty rate of 10 per cent will act as a deterrent against “cuckoo” and “vulture” funds buying large numbers of nearly built houses and apartments.
The irony of this isn’t lost of me as I’m still paying off a mortgage that includes a significant sum relating to the stamp duty that I paid a few years back, when mere mortals were charged at a rate of 9 per cent on secondhand houses.
This rate ultimately fed into house-price inflation and it also helped the State become accustomed to taking massive sums in direct and indirect taxes and levies from the housing market.
The State profiteering from housing has been and is one of the great unmentioned parameters in the current housing “crisis”.
Until something is done about it, we won’t get close to solving the problem. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN CULLEN,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.