Tax man is comming after landlords.

CLAPTON

doubtless there are many ways of collating data, but a list of (some) landlords with gross rents and home addresses seem a pretty good staring point.

silvercar

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.

So they get a letter telling them that if they raised the deposit by increasing the mortgage on their main residence, the interest on this also qualifies as a business expense and can therefore reduce their tax bill. being genuinely helpful or laying the bait? You decide.

Generali

CLAPTON wrote: »

doubtless there are many ways of collating data, but a list of (some) landlords with gross rents and home addresses seem a pretty good staring point.

I agree. There's a saying in business: pick the low hanging fruit first. This seems like a really easy way to tally claimed income and income received. The Taxman then has a starting point to investigate a group of Landlords.

joepubli

Actually, for most people once they have taken off the mortgage interest, agent's fees +VAT and repair/refurbishment costs there isn't a whole lot left that's taxable.

Any money made is the increase in the value of the property rather than rental income.

Wi88le

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?

Property has to be advertised to let somewhere at some point, news paper ads etc could be checked, perhaps an upset tenant of former one, then there's also things like the tenancy deposit protection schemes which could be cross referenced against.

chewmylegoff

joepubli wrote: »

Actually, for most people once they have taken off the mortgage interest, agent's fees +VAT and repair/refurbishment costs there isn't a whole lot left that's taxable.

Any money made is the increase in the value of the property rather than rental income.

The increase in value is itself taxable, although I doubt that HMRC and the LR are joined up enough so that intel gathered by HMRC now can be used to trigger an HMRC 'reminder' to the landlord when the property is sold in the future.

chewmylegoff

ging84 wrote: »

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

I don't know what information the government holds about housing benefit claimants but if it knows the address of the property which the claim is made in respect of, then HMRC could just start off by getting that information and then working out whether the registered owner is declaring rental income.

theEnd

joepubli wrote: »

Actually, for most people once they have taken off the mortgage interest, agent's fees +VAT and repair/refurbishment costs there isn't a whole lot left that's taxable.

Any money made is the increase in the value of the property rather than rental income.

That sounds about right.

I imagine there's plenty of scope for 'flipping' refurbs of their personal stuff onto the rental property too.

purch

I am sure all sensible professional Landlords will have their tax affairs in order, and will have structured their holdings in such a way as to minimise any tax charge due.

IveSeenTheLight

purch wrote: »

I am sure all sensible professional Landlords will have their tax affairs in order, and will have structured their holdings in such a way as to minimise any tax charge due.

Yep, I have no concerns about anyone auditing my tax returns