One of the UK’s most respected think tanks has just made the case we’ve been making for years: Council Tax and Stamp Duty are broken, and a proportional property tax should replace them.
With the Autumn Budget due on 28 October, the timing could hardly be better. The question is no longer whether our property taxes need fixing. It’s whether the government will act.
What the Resolution Foundation is proposing
The Resolution Foundation wants Council Tax and Stamp Duty replaced by a single, revenue-neutral tax charged at 0.7% of a home’s current value. It would be paid by occupiers, with rebates for poorer households and the option to defer bills until sale for people who are asset-rich but cash-poor.
The diagnosis is blunt. The UK raises more from property taxes than any other OECD country, 3.7% of GDP in 2023 against an average of 2%, but it raises that money badly. Council Tax still rests on 1991 valuations, and Stamp Duty stops people moving to homes and jobs that suit them.
The unfairness shows up in the numbers:
- By 2030-31, the effective annual tax rate on a £100,000 home will be almost three times that on a £1 million home.
- 61% of households in England will be overpaying by an average of £430 a year compared with a proportional tax.
- In the North East, 85% of households lose out from the current system, by an average of £710 a year.
- London underpaid £3.1 billion in property tax in 2024-25, relative to the value of its homes.
- Almost two-thirds of households below the 80th income percentile lose out, while over half of the top 5% underpay.
Andrew Dixon on the panel
The Resolution Foundation brought together leading voices in the property tax reform debate to discuss the new analysis, with Fairer Share founder and chair Andrew Dixon among the speakers. You can watch the full event here.
Andrew congratulated the Resolution Foundation for their important work, and made the case why full scale reform is needed. For Fairer Share, the debate was a sign of how far the argument has come: property tax reform is no longer a fringe idea, but a mainstream conversation among economists, campaigners and politicians from across the parties.
Where Fairer Share’s Proportional Property Tax fits
The Resolution Foundation’s conclusion is the one Fairer Share has argued since 2020: Scrap Council Tax and Stamp Duty, and put a single tax on current property values in their place, raising the same money more fairly.
The common ground is substantial:
- Replace both taxes, together. The Foundation warns that scrapping Stamp Duty alone would hand a giveaway to the best-off. We agree.
- Proportional to today’s value. No more 1991 bands, and no more £100,000 homes paying a higher rate than £1 million ones.
- Revenue-neutral. This is about fairness, not a tax grab.
- Protection built in. Both models include help for those who struggle to pay, including deferral until sale.
There are differences in the detail. Our Proportional Property Tax is set at 0.48% of current value, and under it 77% of households would pay less, saving £556 a year on average. The Foundation’s modelling uses a 0.7% rate and a phased route to getting there. These are questions of design, and the commission the Foundation proposes is exactly the place to settle them.
What matters is that the direction of travel is now shared by campaigners, economists and one of the country’s most influential think tanks. Fairer Share’s Proportional Property Tax remains a leading proposal for how to get there.
The Autumn Budget is the moment
The Resolution Foundation’s first ask is simple and cheap: use the Autumn Budget to start building an up-to-date database of property values. Without it, no serious reform can happen. Every Budget that passes without this step pushes fair property tax further away.
MPs need to hear that their constituents want fundamental reform of our property taxes. It takes 30 seconds to email yours and ask them to back an independent review of property taxes.