Tax man is comming after landlords.

Conrad

Just wanted to relay what's happening on the front line in case of interest.


The letting agent within my office has been told by HMRC to provide in depth detail on all landlords on her books to include their home address and total gross rents received. This instruction came through a while back and now they are enforcing all agents provide the info which she is now doing.


I would imagine once they get their teeth into cases they will be looking at not just income but things like from where the 25% deposits came.


It's not uncommon to hear LL's implying nothing has ever been declared so some bills are going to be eye watering.

Masomnia

Good. I've no problem with landlords as such, but they should pay what they owe, same as everyone else.

Having said that I've had one or two friends whose landlords insisted on being paid cash (can't think why...) but all the ones I've had wanted standing orders, so you'd assume they're happy with there being a paper trail. So I'm not sure how big an issue it actually is.

I'm wondering if over the past few years there has been an increase in 'accidental landlords' who may not be so au fait with tax law in this area.

movilogo

There are lots of landlords who don't use letting agents in the first place. They also didn't tell their banks about their BTL either. How exactly HMRC is going to trace them?

ViolaLass

Conrad wrote: »

I would imagine once they get their teeth into cases they will be looking at not just income but things like from where the 25% deposits came.

Isn't that kind of thing usually checked by the solicitors when the property is bought?

mystic_trev

movilogo wrote: »

There are lots of landlords who don't use letting agents in the first place. They also didn't tell their banks about their BTL either. How exactly HMRC is going to trace them?

Some will get away with it, but like most crime, habitual Criminals get careless, and once they do the whole lot will 'hit the fan'

Thrugelmir

HMRC formed a unit last September just to tackle undeclared property letting income. Should be a nice earner. After all there's always the equity in the property to pay the bill.

ruggedtoast

Excellent. Excellent!

The piggies will start squealing soon.

gallygirl

movilogo wrote: »

There are lots of landlords who don't use letting agents in the first place. They also didn't tell their banks about their BTL either. How exactly HMRC is going to trace them?

I've often thought landlords insurance was a good place to start.

kinger101

movilogo wrote: »

There are lots of landlords who don't use letting agents in the first place. They also didn't tell their banks about their BTL either. How exactly HMRC is going to trace them?

Don't really get your point. Obviously letting agents will only tell the HMRC about landlords who are their clients. You seem to be implying that this approach isn't worthwhile because some landlords can't be traced this way.

Generali

kinger101 wrote: »

Don't really get your point. Obviously letting agents will only tell the HMRC about landlords who are their clients. You seem to be implying that this approach isn't worthwhile because some landlords can't be traced this way.

It's a fallacious argument: don't bother investigating anyone because you can't catch all of them.

ging84

Who owns what property is public record, i suspect simply looking down a list who owns property they do not appear to have lived in for 2 years according to the address on their tax returns but haven't declared a rental income would give a fairly high hit ratio. And it wouldn't take much to do a bit of ruling out based on properties in areas which are likely to be second homes for the wealthy and people who's tax returns show they could well afford a 2nd home and areas which are likely to be cheap rental properties, owned by people who earn suspiciously little for someone who could afford a holiday home