U.K. Election

The “no” campaign targeted Scotland’s future currency by ruling out sharing the pound with an independent state. That raised the possibility of Scots having mortgages in a currency they didn’t get paid in.

The property levy fits the SNP’s agenda of helping lower- income Scots in the face of benefit cuts by the government in London and expected proposals for tax breaks for wealthier earners by Cameron ahead of the 2015 U.K. election.

Invoking economist Adam Smith, who developed his theories and lectured at Edinburgh University, Swinney, the finance minister, said the new regulations were based on the principle “that taxes should be proportionate to the ability to pay.” The levy will ensure “certainty, convenience for the taxpayer and efficiency of tax collection,” he said in an e-mailed statement.

Housing Prices

Edinburgh, Scotland’s financial capital and home to fund management companies overseeing at least $800 billion, accounted for more than half of all sales valued at 1 million pounds or more in the first six months of this year.

House price gains have been slowing in Edinburgh this year. The average value of a home was 220,174 pounds after an annual rise of 3.6 percent in the July to September period, the ESPC law firm group said in its report last week. That compares with a 5.6 percent gain in December through February.

Nationwide, housing sales have been expanding in fiscal 2014. The total value of residential sales was 13.8 billion pounds, 22 percent more than the previous year and the highest since the height of the previous boom in 2008. The value is down 7.4 percent compared with 2004.

Realtors said they expect the new tax to slow the market by making it harder for prospective buyers to save enough for a down payment and secure a mortgage. Douglas-Home of Knight Frank said purchasers will look to have some or all of the costs absorbed by reductions in house prices.

“It’s going to significantly reduce their ability to spend,” he said.

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