Homes are transferred to offshore companies and sold as corporate transactions
The super-rich are costing the taxpayer up to £1billion a year by exploiting a legal loophole which allows them to avoid paying stamp duty when selling their exclusive homes. 
The dodge involves transferring ownership of a property to an off-shore company so when it comes to be sold the buyer purchases the company as a whole assuming de-facto ownership of the property.
Because the deal is classed as a corporate transaction as opposed to a property sale there are no stamp duty obligations involved.
A spokesman for the treasury said the government is committed to ensuring that owners of expensive properties do not avoid paying the fair amount of tax.
However experts believe the tax dodge is costing at least £500million a year with the true figure likely to be around £1billion.
Chancellor George Osborne is coming under increasing pressure to clamp down on stamp duty avoidance
The savings involved can be vast. Someone who purchases a £50million property though an off-shore company would avoid paying the treasury £2.5million.
Most of the transactions involve central London properties which are currently seen by the super-rich as a safe haven.
Flats in the luxurious One Hyde Park development in London’s Knightsbridge cost upwards of £65million each.
Ukraine billionaire Rinat Akemtove recently splashed out £136 million on two which he transformed into a single luxury Penthouse.
While Nick Candy, chief executive of developers Candy & Candy is at pains to point out that stamp duty has been collected for every one of the flats sold for a total cost of £1.4 billion, many were immediately transferred to offshore companies.
Properties transferred into offshore companies include celebrity homes such as Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins’s £4.7 million London residence and reality TV star Tamara Ecclestone’s £10.75m home.
Although there is no suggestion that they have avoided paying stamp duty on purchasing said properties, it would now be possible for them to sell them on as a corporate transaction.
The practise is believed to have become more common since the levy on £1million-plus houses was raised from four to five per cent earlier this year.
Move: Among those to transfer their homes into offshore companies are Tamara Ecclestone (left) and Katherine Jenkins
It is rumoured that the top rate of stanp duty will rise to six per cent in the Autumn statement next week.
In exclusive Cornwall Terace in North London, where the average asking price is £35 million, every single home has been transferred to a company on the Isle of Man.
Now Chancellor George Osborne is coming under increasing pressure to clamp down on the practice.
Former Teasury Spokesman Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay told the Times newspaper: ‘George Osborne highlighted the problem in his budget but only ticked it with a feather duster.
‘The City lawyers and accountants know how to dodge stamp duty - it is worth paying one of the millions to tell the Treasury how to stamp out the stamp duty scandal.’
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