The Institute for Fiscal Studies has slammed the Chancellor’s “damaging” move to hike stamp duty on second properties warning it will hurt renters.

The think tank warns the tax grab will not just punish investors, as intended, but tenants too.

Its director Paul Johnson says Rachel Reeves’ Autumn Budget held “little in the way of serious tax reform” but included “some deeply disappointing decisions”.

He says: “I have said again and again that stamp duty land tax is among the most economically damaging of all our taxes, and yet we have it increasing again.

“The increase may just be on second properties, but it is renters who will pay part of the cost as the supply of such properties falls.”

Reflecting on the Budget as a whole, Johnson says the Chancellor is taking two major “gambles”.

Johnson says the first gamble is that the investment she is making into public services over the next two years will be enough to turn around their performance.

“If she’s wrong about that, and spending pressures don’t dissipate after two years, then to avoid cutting unprotected areas she may well need to come back with another round of tax rises in a couple of years’ time – unless she gets lucky on growth,” he says.

The second gamble, according to Johnson, is whether or not the Chancellor’s extra borrowing will prove to be worthwhile.

Johnson says: “Under pre-election plans we were set to borrow an average of £59bn per year over the next four years.

“We now expect to borrow an average of £85bn.

“The hope is that the benefits – from more funding for public services in the next couple of years, and from more public investment throughout the parliament – will more than offset the costs.

“These costs include higher debt servicing costs but also, according to the OBR, higher inflation and higher interest rates than we’d otherwise have seen.”

Johnson warns: “A lot hinges on how well the government spends the money. The additional investment is extremely front-loaded, which doesn’t fill me with confidence on how efficiently it will be spent – if indeed it is spent in that timescale.”