10:08 AM, 22nd March 2024, About 9 months ago 21
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Angela Rayner has slammed the allegations of tax evasion over her council house sale as a ‘smear’ in a BBC Newsnight interview.
The deputy Labour Party leader insists there was ‘no wrongdoing’ or ‘unlawfulness’ in the sale of her Stockport home.
The allegations first appeared in the Daily Mail and a biography by Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative Party treasurer.
The issue is whether Ms Rayner’s former home was her principal residence at the time of sale – something she declined to clarify in the interview.
This distinction could have affected the amount of tax owed though there is still no clarity on where she was actually living when married.
Ms Rayner told the BBC: “I’ve been very clear there’s no rules broken. They [the Conservatives] tried to manufacture a police investigation.
“They [the police] said there’s no issues there. I got tax advice which says there was no capital gains tax. It’s a non-story manufactured to try and smear me.”
Ms Rayner acknowledged that she commissioned professional tax advice recently after the claims about the house sale emerged.
She said: “I was a home care worker, you know, I didn’t have an accountant. I had, as most people would: you put your house on the market, you get a legal conveyancing solicitor, and you get an estate agent.
“But since those allegations were put to me, I got expert tax advice to make sure that I hadn’t done anything wrong.”
Ms Rayner bought the Vicarage Road property for £79,000 in January 2007 and she married Mark Rayner, who owned a separate house nearby, in September 2010.
Although she described the Vicarage Road property as her ‘principal house’, she admitted to spending time at her husband’s home.
In March 2015, two months before becoming an MP, Ms Rayner sold the Vicarage Road property for £127,500, making a gain of £48,500. The couple separated in 2020.
Earlier this month, Greater Manchester Police found no evidence of any offence after Conservative MP James Daly requested an investigation into whether Ms Rayner had provided false information.
It has been estimated that Ms Rayner could be liable for a Capital Gains Tax bill of £1,500 and a Sunday Times article suggested that no tax would have been due if she met one of two conditions.
They are jointly nominating with her then-husband her Vicarage Road property as their main residence or spending £15,000 or more on home improvements on the Vicarage Road home before selling it.
HMRC rules state that married couples and civil partners ‘can only count one property as their main home at any one time’.
However, the Labour deputy leader acknowledges that when selling her house in 2015 she was not aware of the HMRC rules which state married couples or civil partners can only count one property as their main residence.
Ms Rayner told Newsnight: “No, I wasn’t aware of the HMRC rules… when I sold that property.
“As I say, I sold it as most people would put it on the market, got the solicitor and the estate agents, etc. since those allegations were put to me, the tax laws on capital gains tax and principal private residency, etc. is very complex, including marriage.
“I got that advice that is categoric that I do not owe any capital gains tax on that.”
When asked whether she had met one of the two conditions on residence, Ms Rayner declined to answer the points in detail – but did insist she owed no tax.
She said: “The rules are complex and these are various different ways to which it’s calculated.
“But I got back that expert advice because if I did owe any capital gains tax, I would have said and I would have paid it.
“But I don’t owe any capital gains tax because of the circumstances. And I’ve gone through that with a tax expert, and they’ve given me that advice.”
The BBC Newsnight interview is available on iPlayer.
To help Angela Rayner and anyone who needs more information about landlord tax and incorporation, contact Property118’s experts:
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Sign Up8:17 AM, 25th March 2024, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Freda Blogs at 24/03/2024 - 16:35
I think that's probably true.