DAILY POST COMMENT: Tackle the unfairest tax of all.

OF all stealth taxes, stamp duty - as it currently stands - has to be one of the most unfair. Originally intended only to apply to those who could afford a house at the upper end of the market (which might therefore be seen as a luxury), it is now, because of soaring house prices, a catch-all which discriminates against the very section of the population this government purports to champion and should be assisting for all our sakes: the low-paid who nevertheless aspire towards self-improvement and self-dependency.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, almost everyone outside the treasury and Downing Street is demanding the chancellor use his forthcoming budget to raise the threshold at which this property tax becomes payable.

And seldom has a tax been more in need of reform and updating to reflect our changing times than stamp duty in North and mid Wales which last month saw the average price of houses break through the pounds 100,000 barrier for the first time. What social justice if duty is collected from a starting point of pounds 60,000?

To be fair to Mr Brown, there are hundreds of wards in Wales and elsewhere in the UK where stamp duty has been exempted since November 2001 because they are deemed disadvantaged, and provided the purchase price in question does not exceed pounds 150,000.

Surprisingly not everyone (including solicitors) seem to be aware of this, and the inland revenue website linking to the full list is well worth checking out (it could be worth pounds 600 to you).

But while there are some inclusions which might also surprise you, there are areas which equally deserve to be exempted but are not. And with the average price for a semi in Gwynedd now being pounds 140,000, there's not much leeway for anyone seeking a family-sized house anyway.

Instead of more and more bureaucracy then, why not at a stroke remove thousands from this burden? The government has raised rates seven times since coming to power, but has never once adjusted the three stamp duty bands to recognise house price inflation.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders reckons it's possible for the chancellor to change to a graduated duty structure with a starting threshold as high as pounds 160,000 at today's prices, and still maintain revenue levels.

The government, it points out, says it wants to help first-time buyers, and the most obvious way to do this is to reduce the burden of stamp duty on them.

It is right. There really is no excuse for not taking action now to improve affordability at the lower end of the housing market. And actions will speak louder than words