A steep rise in stamp duty in the Westcountry has prompted calls for reform and claims that families and first-time buyers are being unfairly targeted.
New figures show a £1.5 billion rise in the total Stamp Duty Land Tax yield from residential sales in 2013/14.
The £6.45 billion total is a 31% increase on the £4.9 billion paid in 2012/13, according to HM Revenue and Customs data.
Home owners and estate agents have called for major changes to the levy after the Treasury raked in 28% more from property sales in the South West, where the total rose from £405 million to £520 million this year.
The yield from 50,000 transactions in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset alone – where high house prices and low wages make getting on the property ladder tough – has netted the Chancellor around £250 million in 213/14.
The National Association of Estate Agents (NEAE) in the region has called for the £125,000 threshold at which the lowest rate of 1% kicks in to be raised to £150,000 and for a more graduated regime to 3% at £500,000.
Richard Copus, South West spokesman for the NAEA, said the case for reform was clear, though none of the political parties were interested in modernising the tax.
"Nobody likes stamp duty but the Government makes billions from it so the sensible thing to do is reform it into a system which is simple, acceptable and progressive" he added.
"When you get above £250,000 and the 3% kicks in it really seems like a step up and creates a distortion in the market.
"For just one pound above you pay an extra £5,000 – that is a hell of a lot of money and it is just common sense to have it staggered."
Analysts have detected a cooling in the market over the summer with property prices remaining flat in the South West.
The Land Registry, which is considered the most reliable guide to the market, this week recorded a 0.1% drop across the region after a 5.8% increase for the year to August took the average price of a home to almost £184,000.
Residential stamp duty yield peaked at £6.68 billion in 2007/08 during the height of the property boom, and as the credit crunch set in takings dropped dramatically to £2.95bn the following year.
The £520m generated in the South West remained well below the £665m raised in 2007/08.
Devon led the local authority areas with 19,000 transactions raising £106m, compared to Cornwall, where 13,000 sales generated £59m, and Somerset, where 12,000 chipped in £57m.
The HMRC report said the growing stamp duty yield from England was in part due to the distorting effects of London and the South East, where property prices have soared.
Of the £6.45bn revenue collected in the last year, more than two-fifths (42%) of it was from London and one fifth (21%) came from property sales in the South East.
Sales of homes are free of stamp duty up to the value of £125,000 and attract a 1% tax above this level and up to £250,000. But rising house prices as the housing market gathers pace mean that more purchasers face paying at higher rates.
A stamp duty rate of 3% is applied to homes worth over £250,000 to £500,000, one of 4% is imposed on those valued at over £500,000 up to £1 million, one of 5% kicks in on those worth over £1 million to £2 million and one of 7% is applied beyond that point.
Last week, Labour proposed introducing a mansion tax on homes worth £2 million-plus, a suggestion which has been criticised by estate agents as effectively being a tax on London and the South East.
The ONS figures also showed that across the country, a typical first-time buyer faces paying 13.5% more to get on the property ladder than they did a year ago, at £209,000.
This is the steepest annual increase seen since 2005.
Paula Higgins, chief executive of campaign group the Home Owners Alliance, said the tax was originally introduced to apply "to the few".
"It is now a tax on families and first-time buyers buying homes to live in as they have to save thousands to pay this upfront tax," she added.
"For some reason, the Government doesn't see any contradiction in their attempts to get people onto the property ladder and heavily taxing them as they clamber onto the first rung. If the Government was serious about helping first-time buyers, the stamp duty exemption threshold would always be above the average house price, so ordinary home buyers don't pay."
