The stamp duty slug on home buyers, described as “bracket creep on steroids”, has more than quadrupled in major capital cities over the past 20 years and appears to be deterring people from moving house, as state governments fail to adjust the tax in line with the property boom.

A Sydney home buyer now pays $49,934 in stamp duty on the median house, compared with $11,915 in 2001 – a more than $38,000 windfall for the NSW government. This represents 54 per cent of the average annual earnings in the state, compared with less than a third in 2001, significantly increasing the difficulty of saving for a deposit and the transaction costs of buying a home.