Received wisdom is that the Cold War ended in the early 80s, when Ronald Reagan announced his Strategic Defensive Initiative (SDI, Star Wars Initiative). It was a quantum leap in nuclear defence and light years ahead of Soviet weapons technology.
The impact was such that it forced the Russians to reconsider their strategic defence; we all know what happened next and ultimately, they ‘threw in the (radioactive) towel’.
However, there is a problem. It is not quite the truth. Continue reading
There were few Tax changes in today’s Budget, in respect of SDLT, for the Residential Property Market.
Of the few measures put forward, was the £500million for the Housing Infrastructure Fund, which according to Mr. Hammond will allow another 650,000 homes to be built. Although this sounds dramatic, if it is spread across many fiscal years, it won’t make much of a difference in order to help fix the ‘broken housing market’. Continue reading
Dear Chancellor,
I know you have some competing issues to consider at the moment, not least of which is finding the resources to meet ‘Maybots’ NHS largesse of £20billion. Nevertheless, for pity’s sake, you must do something about the distorting effect of the existing Stamp Duty regime on the UK Residential Property Market.
Whilst the SDLT changes may have been a laudable aim of the former Chancellor Osborne, to slow the property market down, thereby protecting the housing stock, the measures he used were closer to ‘stingers’ than they were to ‘sleeping policeman’.