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Thursday, August 20, 2015

Petition against changes to landlords tax

The petition to reverse the Government's planned changes to restrict tax relief for ‘individual’ landlords has hit the 14,000 figure.

The petition argues -

"We operate as sole traders and incur costs in the course of running our business. The planned restriction will unfairly target us by preventing us from offsetting costs in the same manner as other sole traders. We ask that the planned restriction be reconsidered as it has unfair implications.More details

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has stated, in response to the Budget, individual landlords are already taxed more heavily than other homeowners.

The private rented sector is heavily reliant on individual landlords. The planned change is likely to result in higher rents due to landlords looking to offset higher tax liabilities.

In some cases, employed individuals own buy to let properties as investments for retirement. The planned restriction would adversely and unfairly affect them."



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The sheer audacity of it , the Chancellor increases our responsibility and with it liability with the 'right to rent' rule where as landlords we are now expected to be in the front line in checking tenants legal rights to be in the country before handing over a property to rent. If we get it wrong apparently there is a hrs type fine or even imprisonment. And where's our carrot for the extra responsibility, no.carrot but another stick we then find out in the budget that we are to lose our wear and tear allowance and suffer a reduction in mortgage interest relief.

I for one certainly oppose the proposed. Changes and would go even further and say why are we not being offered any incentives for the right to rent scheme where we have all the risk and absolutely no reward.

Steve P

Anonymous said...

Having built up a model to retire on using personal,taxed earnings in the foundation's, this is wholly inappropriate. Why not target businesses throughout with the same rules?

Anonymous said...

BTL investments are essentially being run as businesses. As in any business investment we have all the risk and management costs. If limited companies are allowed to claim Mortgage Interest it will be grossly unfair that this relief be taken from individuals especially the higher earners who have worked hard to put their already taxed savings into buying properties to supplement their pension where pension funds & endowment policies (daylight robbery & should be classed as criminal) have failed miserably to do so effectively. This could be seen as squeezing the middle aged to elderly population out of their hard earned pension in BTL property investments & probably force them into overnight poverty as once forced to sell their BTLs to keep themselves above the taxation expense the capital gains receivable after tax will have to be invested in ISA which probably pays less than 50% of the rental income currently earned. This could create more foreign investors who want to stash their monies abroad and what better than UK thus creating either more vacant properties or worse, escalation of Rents. If the Rents becomes regularised then the investors will pull out & probably invest in commodities instead or emigrate to a cheaper country. The government either treat these micro businesses of BTLs as businesses as they are or face more young & elderly persons having to rely on benefits to see them through or move abroad as the cost of living has been escalating year on year. Simplify the whole tax legislation & you wouldn't need to police tax evasion & avoidance - billions saved then! You must know that whatever restrictions imposed will not affect the very rich or very poor but the middle to upper middle classes - the majority of voters here. Demand for SNPs instead of Tories may ensue from the English/London population as it could be the the better of the two unsatisfactory parties - sad, very sad.....Please do not impose this restriction of mortgage interest claim on BTL rental income.

Unknown said...

I may be being slightly cynical here ;) As a previous poster mentioned any business should be allowed to offset costs. The chancellor has given I believe an exemption to limited companies. If you are a rich peer, as many of the cabinet are, I'm sure managing your very large portfolio would have to come under a Ltd company. So as far as I understand it, the very rich landlords with 100's if not 1000's of properties will be unaffected. Its only us smaller landlords with a handful of properties, who obviously have ideas above our station, who are the ones to be penalized again. Sound familiar?

SAMUEL said...

Give the small trader a big chance