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VAT on the Home Information Pack
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Surely that's a virtually meaningless statement.
Pretty much any form of secondary taxation can be described in that way:
VAT and before that Purchase tax, alcohol, petrol and tobacco duties, stamp duty etc. etc.
Your logic would imply that all tax other than income tax should be scrapped and replaced with higher income tax.
That is a bad idea because we have no control over income tax, you earn what you earn and are taxed accordingly. With indirect taxation you at least have some small degree of control. You can choose how much you spend or save - If you buy a car with a huge engine you pay more tax on petrol, if you drink and smoke you pay more there.
You pay stamp duty with funds that are subject to income tax so in that sense it's taxed twice, alcohol etc is taxed 3 times
I don't think the HIP is a tax - you're paying a solicitor or whoever to compile all the information a purchaser would otherwise have to pay for at the moment. So the burden is taken from the homebuyer onto the home seller.
Whether that's good or bad is up to you but it's not a tax.
Actually you could make a fair case for the total abolition of income tax and place the entire burden on indirect taxation - it's probably impractical but it's an interesting idea - don't think the tourist industry would be too pleased!
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