Lawyers call for reform of stamp duty
18 Jul 05
Legal representatives in Scotland, England and Wales are calling for an urgent review of the current system.
Office bearers and tax law committee members from the Law Society of Scotland will be meeting senior officals from the HM Revenues & Customs this week in an attempt to address the problematic Stamp Duty Land Tax Regime.
The committee's convener Isobel d'Inverno, the director of corporate tax at MacRoberts, said the Law Society wanted the officials to agree to some level of service improvement and to address the poor performance of the system, which was causing problems for lawyers and the public.
The Scottish calls for improvement echo those made in England and Wales. The Law Society of England and Wales says that more than 4,000 solicitors have now signed up to a campaign launched in May to asking for serious flaws in the system to be rectified. An early day motion is expected to be tabled in parliament soon, asking the government to urgently review the SDLT collection system.
Since the tax was introduced in 2003, small high street solicitors claim to have been hit by escalating administration costs because of fines being incorrectly levied and processing delays.
Interest has been demanded when both the return and and tax has been submitted on time and solicitors claim the forms are too long and complicated for most clients to understand.
Ms d'Inverno said: "The situation is pretty terrible and it just isn't getting any better."