Super-rich dodging stamp duty

brit1234

Super-rich costing the treasury £1bn a year by dodging stamp duty on their properties

• Homes are transferred to offshore companies and sold as corporate transactions

The super-rich are costing the taxpayer up to £1billion a year by exploiting a legal loophole which allows them to avoid paying stamp duty when selling their exclusive homes.
The dodge involves transferring ownership of a property to an off-shore company so when it comes to be sold the buyer purchases the company as a whole assuming de-facto ownership of the property.
Because the deal is classed as a corporate transaction as opposed to a property sale there are no stamp duty obligations involved.

A spokesman for the treasury said the government is committed to ensuring that owners of expensive properties do not avoid paying the fair amount of tax.

However experts believe the tax dodge is costing at least £500million a year with the true figure likely to be around £1billion.


Chancellor George Osborne is coming under increasing pressure to clamp down on stamp duty avoidance

The savings involved can be vast. Someone who purchases a £50million property though an off-shore company would avoid paying the treasury £2.5million. Most of the transactions involve central London properties which are currently seen by the super-rich as a safe haven.

Flats in the luxurious One Hyde Park development in London's Knightsbridge cost upwards of £65million each.

Ukraine billionaire Rinat Akemtove recently splashed out £136 million on two which he transformed into a single luxury Penthouse.

While Nick Candy, chief executive of developers Candy & Candy is at pains to point out that stamp duty has been collected for every one of the flats sold for a total cost of £1.4 billion, many were immediately transferred to offshore companies.

Properties transferred into offshore companies include celebrity homes such as Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins's £4.7 million London residence and reality TV star Tamara Ecclestone's £10.75m home.

Although there is no suggestion that they have avoided paying stamp duty on purchasing said properties, it would now be possible for them to sell them on as a corporate transaction.

The practise is believed to have become more common since the levy on £1million-plus houses was raised from four to five per cent earlier this year.

It is rumoured that the top rate of stanp duty will rise to six per cent in the Autumn statement next week.

In exclusive Cornwall Terace in North London, where the average asking price is £35 million, every single home has been transferred to a company on the Isle of Man.

Now Chancellor George Osborne is coming under increasing pressure to clamp down on the practice. Former Teasury Spokesman Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay told the Times newspaper: 'George Osborne highlighted the problem in his budget but only ticked it with a feather duster.

'The City lawyers and accountants know how to dodge stamp duty - it is worth paying one of the millions to tell the Treasury how to stamp out the stamp duty scandal.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066485/Super-rich-costing-treasury-1bn-year-stamp-duty-tax-dodge.html#ixzz1epgPV8qv

Must be time for a mansion tax next week to be announced.

paulmapp8306

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

MrRee_2

Why should we pay when there is a way around it?

Paying taxes is for the poor ....

reweird

No one's doing anything illegal.

MrRee_2

Exactly! .................

brit1234

reweird wrote: »

No one's doing anything illegal.

MrRee wrote: »

Why should we pay when there is a way around it?

Paying taxes is for the poor ....

Sibley I have quite enough of Nollags 18 sock puppets on another thread. Just post as yourself and you will get more respect.

The reason it is wrong is we have a deficit and debt. We are currently laying government workers including serving soldiers who are going to have a terrible Christmas.

The simple thing if you want to live in this country you pay the taxes or get out.

Why should foreign millionaires/billionaires not pay stamp duty, hide their wealth in property and price out the locals?

leveller2911

Brit you can't debate with Trolls so why bother. Most of us don't bother any more..........Just ignore them,it gets very easy once you get the hang of it,rise above it Bud...........

MrRee_2

brit1234 wrote: »

The reason it is wrong is we have a deficit and debt.

We pay the Accountant, who pays the window cleaner who pays the taxes.

We pay to have the swimming pool cleaned and the tennis court re-laid.

We give people jobs and futures.

We should not pay tax at all ..... why should we pay for lazy chavs who squat on council estates?

And, I agree - ignore the trolls ...

kabayiri

It's very simple.

If you can afford a £50m pound property, you can afford the stamp duty.

If you can't afford it go shop in a cheaper area with the other wanna-be richers.

reweird

brit1234 wrote: »

Why should foreign millionaires/billionaires not pay stamp duty, hide their wealth in property and price out the locals?

Why shouldn't they? All they are doing id looking out for their interests and I bet my house that you given the opportunity would and do exactly the same thing if you were in their boots. If you don't like it then do something about it, petition the government to change the laws. But until then as I said no one is doing anything illegal.

MrRee_2

Simple jealousy ....

If those moaning want the chance to pay £100,000 in Stamp Duty ... be my guest, but - before you do - you will need the intelligence to make the £Millions in the first place - this would involve getting off ones backside and doing something other than moaning on a BBS.