The Treasury has collected £12.3bn in stamp duty receipts from the beginning of the tax holiday last July up to August 2021, according to HMRC data.

Stamp duty takings in August were £910m, taking total receipts for the first eight months of the year to £7.6bn, says Coventry Building Society which studied HMRC’s figures.  

The final phase of the stamp duty holiday – with the threshold having being decreased from £500,000 to £250,000 on 30 June – is due to end on 30 September.

From 1 October, the threshold will return to £125,000 – or £300,000 for first-time buyers purchasing a property worth up to £500,000, concluding a tapered end to the current stamp duty holiday.

Prior to that, on 1 July, the stamp duty nil-rate threshold was reduced from £500,000 to £250,000 until the end of September.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak introduced the tax relief last July to revive the housing market, which had stalled following lockdown restrictions.

Coventry Building Society head of intermediary relationships Jonathan Stinton says: “Stamp duty has continued to be a very lucrative source of income for the taxman, even with a large proportion of property purchases being exempt from it for over a year.

“Clearly, there’s still a very healthy market for higher value homes, second homes and rental properties.

“There’s still momentum in the property market with lots of people still looking to buy and the current starting point of £250,000, introduced in July, means people buying an average-priced home will now trigger a tax bill.

“The size of those bills and the number of people paying them will only increase once the holiday ends in full on 30 September.

“With the Budget just a few weeks after the holiday ends, it could be the right time to look at a higher stamp duty threshold to ease the burden from average home owners, which wouldn’t make much of a dent in revenue for HMRC.”