Stamp duty on shares must be axed, says London Stock Exchange boss amid tax is holding back investment By John-Paul Ford Rojas Updated: 22:00 BST, 20 May 2024 e-mail View comments The boss of the London Stock Exchange yesterday joined calls for Britain’s ‘pernicious’ stamp duty on share trading to be scrapped amid growing frustration the tax is holding back investment. Julia Hoggett attacked the levy, which forces investors to pay a 0.5 per cent tax when buying British shares even though they pay nothing if they put money into foreign firms.
‘We shouldn’t be taxing our own investors to invest in our own economy and that is one of the things I think does need to be changed,’ she said. ‘It is much more in people’s sights than it has been for a long time.’ Stamp duty is seen by many as a key factor in holding back Britain’s stock market, after companies such as chip designer Arm and gambling group Flutter chose to switch to New York.
Flutter chief Peter Jackson last week said cutting stamp duty would be a game-changer and make the UK more appealing, while Stephen Bird, boss of asset manager Abrdn, has said the tax is ‘as unpatriotic as it is economically destructive’. Frustration: LSE boss Julia Hoggett (pictured) has become the latest prominent City figure to take aim at the stamp duty on trading British shares Hoggett’s comments come amid much soul-searching over the stock market’s failure to attract new companies, while losing others to rival marke.
