(Bloomberg) — Scrapping stamp duty on shares would be a key step to help revive Britain’s flailing stock market, according to analysis by Peel Hunt, which predicts that such a move would boost investment inflows and encourage more companies to list in London.
The UK has among the highest levels of tax for stock transactions, Peel Hunt analyst Charles Hall noted, describing stamp duty as “a pernicious tax that is having a material impact on UK equity markets.”Â
While the UK levies 0.5% on shares, trading venues in the US, Germany and Australia have no stamp duty, according to Peel Hunt. The UK also exempts cryptocurrency, ETFs, contract-for-differences and spread-betting transactions from stamp duty, which drains liquidity from equities in favor of such instruments, Hall wrote in a note Monday.Â
“It is clear that stamp duty should be removed as part of a series of reforms to help the recovery in UK capital markets,” he…
