The government has been consulting on a compliance known as ‘conditionality’, which would mean landlords will have to show that they are registered for tax with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) before being granted a licence to trade, or before their licence is renewed. Landlords who are just setting up and not yet trading would need to show that they have understood the requirements to be registered. Simply, it means access to the public sector licenses needed to trade … Read more
Tag: Tax
Don’t be fooled by the campaign to axe stamp duty
Ahead of the Autumn Budget, the Daily Telegraph is leading a fresh charge against stamp duty land tax – a levy on property purchases which taxes the average buyer lightly, but hits buyers of £1 million+ mansions, second homes, and buy-to-let properties harder. Now MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has put cutting stamp duty ‘as a matter of urgency’ at the centre of his prescription for the Conservative Party.
A spate of articles have dubbed stamp duty ‘a tax on mobility … Read more
A tax on both your (privately rented) houses
Wednesday’s budget furrowed many a brow at Shelter. The Chancellor singled out housing support for substantial cuts. A lot of the people who come to Shelter for help are about to find themselves worse off – and our job just got tougher.
However, amidst this frustration there were some sensible tax reforms that deserve an honourable mention.
1. Raise the Roof
The Budget raised the tax-free threshold for the rent-a-room scheme.
This scheme was introduced in 1992 to offer … Read more
Would a mansion tax really be anti-aspiration?
As often happens on Sunday mornings, I hazily grab my phone, look at Twitter, and spot an interesting new idea that a politician or think tank has floated to deal with an aspect of our housing crisis.
This weekend it was the Mail on Sunday leaking wealth tax ideas from a Liberal Democrat internal consultation paper to be discussed at their forthcoming Spring Conference. The main proposal was for assets – particularly property assets – worth more than £2m to … Read more
Into the mainstream: property taxation on the agenda
A key (and much trailed) feature of the Chancellor’s budget today was the introduction of higher stamp duty rates for properties worth more than £2 million. Let’s call it ‘mansion tax lite’. The coalition will also be clamping down on stamp duty avoidance, raising stamp duty even higher for foreign owners of high value homes, and consulting on an annual tax of 15% for certain ‘non-natural persons’ buying mansions. (Non-natural persons is a bit of a funny phrase, … Read more
Tweaking housing taxation
Tax is always going to be a thorny issue. But start talking about it in relation to people’s home and you’re on doubly shaky ground. We have given much thought to housing taxation, finding much of it to be clunky and regressive, with sharp cliff edges between different levels, and the wealthy few paying disproportionately less tax than squeezed families.
Politicians know the system is broken, but have generally avoided talking about property taxes for fear of the political … Read more