premise: The cost of stamp duty for the average house purchase has more than doubled since 1997. In some towns the bills have risen by more than 10,000. Four successive rises in the tax on house purchases and the introduction of incremental bands, with the highest a 4% band for homes valued over 500,000, have sharply increased the amount raised by the Treasury. A spokesperson for the Treasury said that stamp duty remains a very small proportion of overall housing costs and property transaction costs are far lower in the UK than the rest of the EU and United States.
hypothesis: A house sold for half a million pounds incurs a 20,000 stamp duty bill.