If government wants in the business of housing it should be their own houses they are selling or their own property they are selling. Interference in the free market is wrong. They are lowering profits for home owners. OK the amount people make selling theirhome comes down, but the tax means the prices are the same. A 5% drop with a 15% tax is still at 10% increase in housing costs.  Is it really having a positive effect on the economy? 

I'd like to see evidence of that. 

Lowering the value of properties for those who have them is interference. The government should be proactive not destructive. You are selling out home owners for people who want homes. You shouldn't be damaging home owners.

You know if government reinvested that 15% on affordable housing or all housing taxes on affordable housing it might be virtuous, it is just more money for the government to burn in the incinerator Tarrasque of bad management. Yeah take something money can be made off of and drain it.