Will the Conservatives scrap HIPs? : 50,000,000 reasons why they may not!

The Conservative crusade against Home Information Packs (HIPs) shows no signs of abating. It has clearly identified HIPs as a soft target for winning votes in the next General Election in 2010.

However, the reality of office often dilutes the rhetoric. It has been estimated that some 650,000 homes required the purchase of a HIP in the last year.

Prices for HIPs vary, but at www.actionmove.co.uk our standard HIP is £269. Or, to put it another way, the Treasury would have received somewhere in the region of £26,000,000 in V.A.T. receipts. And, this was at the reduced level of 15%.

If you add into the new equation the widely held belief that V.A.T. will inevitably rise to some say as much as 20%, then the projected income from V.A.T. could rise, with a modest increase in home sales to £50,000,000.

With any new Government scraping around for revenue to plug the vast chasms of budget deficits, scrapping HIPs may not be the No. 1 priority.

Paul Hajek