Stamp duty receipts jumped to £1.2bn (£1,196m) in March, amid the extension of relief from the tax introduced by the chancellor.

The government’s take from the levy was 22% higher than the same month a year ago and was the fifth-highest monthly sum since the tax was introduced in 2003, according to an HMRC report published today.

Coventry Building Society head of intermediary relationships Jonathan Stinton says: “These numbers are surprising but anyone in the industry will know how frenetic it has been over the past few months.

“The original March deadline for the holiday would have driven a lot of people to get their house moves through last month.

“That has clearly boosted activity across the market as these tax receipts indicate higher value homes, second homes and rental properties have been exchanging hands. As the holiday has since been extended, we can probably expect to see this busy period continue for a while.”

Overall, stamp duty and annual tax enveloped dwellings receipts for 2020 to 2021 came in at £12.5bn, £2.9bn lower than 12 months earlier, adds the HMRC.

The customs office said the fall was “mainly due to a fall in property sales, market uncertainties surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic and the introduction of the residential stamp duty land tax holiday”.

On the 3 March Budget, chancellor Rishi Sunak extended the stamp duty holiday, which had provided a boost to the housing market that had almost ground to a halt after lockdown restrictions were introduced last March.

The relief, up to a threshold of £500,000, was extended from the end of March to the end of June.

The chancellor added that the nil rate band for stamp duty would subsequently drop to £250,000 until the end of September, returning to the standard cut-off rate of £125,000 from 1 October.

HMRC says its entire receipts for 2020 to 2021 came in at £584.3bn, £49.1bn lower than in the same period a year earlier, after seeing lower tax takes from VAT, corporation tax, as well as oil, stamp and air passenger duties.