Construction & Real Estate Community news

Scottish Aggregates Tax will be the third fully devolved tax in Scotland, replacing the UK Aggregates Levy for aggregate commercially exploited in Scotland from 1 April 2026. Revenue Scotland is responsible for collecting and managing the Scottish Aggregates Tax.

The standard rate will be £130.75 per tonne, the lower rate will be £8.65 per tonne, and the unauthorised disposals rate will be £196.15 per tonne.

While politicians talk about growth they also hike taxes on businesses. There are calls for business rate reform to charge online businesses on the same basis as those based in the high street.

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has tripled its rate of Gateway 2 decisions but still has more than a third of its historic new build cases left to resolve in the new year, according to transparency data published last month.

An expert at estate agent Hamptons has warned that planned council tax changes are likely to cost the Government more than they will raise. Chris Husson-Martin, who was part of the team that valued properties for the new council tax bands in 1991, says that revaluing roughly 150,000 homes will be costly, complicated and reliant on incomplete data. He agrees with the decision not to use outdated council tax bands to determine eligibility for the levy, but warns this will create a scenario where the same home could be valued differently for council tax and the new surcharge.

Highlights from the broader tax news for the week ending 16 December 2025, including: initial guidance from HMRC on the new advance tax certainty service; and an update on HMRC performance.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report the UK property tax burden to be the fourth heaviest of 38 countries analysed. They also found that the UK's overall tax burden slightly exceeds the OECD average and is expected to reach a record 38.3% of GDP by 2031.