Stamp duty, and the levies on the ticket

Equities is the first track where the state itself appears on the dealing ticket. The amounts are small per trade and structural in aggregate - and they differ by country more than any other cost on this platform.

The UK ticket, as the worked case

Buying UK-listed shares incurs stamp duty reserve tax at 0.5% of the purchase - £50 on a £10,000 buy, charged on entry only, never on exit. Larger trades in UK names also carry a small flat levy funding the Takeover Panel; its trigger threshold and amount are occasionally revised, so the current figures belong to your broker's schedule rather than to a lesson. Sales pay no duty. The asymmetry matters: the tax is a cost of entering ownership, priced once.

Reading any market's ticket

• Jurisdiction decides everything: US listings carry no purchase duty (tiny regulatory fees on sales instead); other markets run their own schemes; the same broker charges each correctly by listing venue.
• The wrapper decides applicability: module 1's point - CFDs reference without purchasing and legally sidestep purchase taxes; the financing meter is what they charge instead.
• Rates are budget-dependent facts: check the current schedule where precision matters - a lesson dated 2026 states the structure, your ticket states today's number.

Why a small tax earns a whole lesson

Because it is the cash wrapper's main doorway cost, and therefore half of lesson 5's crossover arithmetic. At 0.5%, the duty equals roughly a month of typical CFD financing on the same position - which converts the wrapper decision into a clean holding-period question. A cost that fits in one sentence ends up steering the instrument choice for every UK equity idea this track evaluates.