Summer Budget 2015 – Landlords Reactions

Homelessness
To continue to protect the most vulnerable, the government will increase the funding available to invest in innovative ways of preventing and reducing homelessness, including:

protecting Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) funding for targeted homelessness intervention
devolving an increased level of funding to local authorities while ending the current management fee for temporary accommodation, giving them greater flexibility to invest in preventing homelessness
providing £40 million for services for victims of domestic abuse, tripling the dedicated funding provided compared to the previous four years and complementing the wider violence against women and girls strategy

Hi Mark

Thoughts on this please

Tackling tax avoidance
The government will introduce a new penalty of 60% of the tax due to be charged in all cases successfully tackled by the General Anti Abuse Rule (GAAR) and will make small changes to the GAAR’s procedure to improve its ability to tackle marketed avoidance schemes.

New rules will be introduced to stop avoidance of stamp tax where ‘deep in the money’ options are used to transfer shares to a depositary receipt issuer or clearance service. To reduce opportunities for income to be converted to capital to gain a tax advantage, the government will shortly publish a consultation on the company distributions rules, and will amend the Transactions in Securities rules and introduce a Targeted Anti-Avoidance Rule.

The government is aware of tax planning around the intangible fixed assets regime used to obtain more generous corporation tax relief than is intended by the legislation. It will therefore amend the regime to stop arrangements that use partnerships to obtain relief that was not intended. The government will also amend legislation to counter two types of avoidance involving capital allowances and leasing, which involve businesses artificially increasing the value of their capital allowances or lowering the amount of tax which they pay.

You bloody peasants! How dare you?! George Osborne is the BEST… bandwagoning, destabilising, scapegoating, livelihood-wrecking, 2nd-tv-reboot-of-house-of-cards-inspiring, dividing-and-conquering, regressively-wealth-and-asset-redistributing, tax-avoidance-and-tax-evasion-incentivising, disensitised arch-backstabber, duke-bastard of the exchequer and driver of homelessness we’ve ever had!

Partnerships are off the table and they are onto any schemes to avoid this new tax grab another nail in the coffin.

They want to close all doors bankrupt u take ur assets and give them to newly formed hedge style funds to manage so they can control it !!

Reply to the comment left by "Johnny SW19" at "25/11/2015 - 14:51":

Johnny,

You hit the nail on head! " A rate “3 percentage points higher” than 0% is 3%"

Sadly, there are some dim-wits who would never get it as they are only interested whether or not they are affected or their small town as opposed to country as a whole.

I just had a chap from Positive causes knock my door collecting for the homeless.
I gave him some money and said it will now be many times worse and I might even be one of them.

Reply to the comment left by "KATHY MILLER" at "25/11/2015 - 17:27":

So - they should be taxing EXISTING SECOND HOMES. Sorry to shout, but I really object to the concentration on the individual and winking at the corporations.

Can we have new non-socialist party, please.

Reply to the comment left by "Chris Brown" at "25/11/2015 - 18:50":

Yes, they offer no moral justification for this. The evidence I have read is that tenants prefer the 'smaller' landlord, so they can't use that as a reason. So what reason is there? Answer: they haven't got any justification and that is why they don't provide one. If they did, we could pick holes in it.

This idea that tenants prefer corporates, or even agents, to dealing with individual landlords is yet more baloney thought up on the spot by politicians trying to rationalise their actions and/or favour bigger business.

Every comment I have had from tenants themselves or seen potential tenants posting on their wanted ads regarding this matter have been the complete opposite. They like to talk directly to the owner instead of a bureaucracy, they prefer the simplicity of the arrangement and they don't get stung by fees. Particularly so with Eastern Europeans who lack the references asked by bigger companies but who I've found to be consistently good tenants.

This is the introduction to ICAEW’s email about today:

“In a speech lasting over an hour, the chancellor laid out swingeing cuts to departmental operational budgets as part of his Comprehensive Spending Review. He also made a major u-turn over tax credits and, contrary to expectations, left the police budget alone. Along with more familiar phrases such as “long-term economic plan” and “fixing the roof while the sun is shining” it was odd (especially after years of cutting) to hear Osborne lay claim to building things. In this “big” statement, the big surprises have yet to be revealed: namely, where (or who) will the money come from? It seems as if the Treasury found some down the back of the sofa, or perhaps in a pothole.”

The head of tax at one firm wrote:

“Buy-to-let landlords have suffered again. Having felt some pain in the July 2015 Budget when the Chancellor announced tax increases for them from 2017, they have now been hit with a 3% stamp duty surcharge on buy-to-let properties. This also applies to the acquisition of any second home. There is a real risk here that rents could increase as landlords pass down the additional costs to their tenants, or that the rental property sector could shrink as landlords sell up. As private landlords have an important role to play in the provision of housing in the UK, the government’s approach here looks more like a political play than a policy decision.
Also in connection with properties, capital gains tax due on the sale of second homes or buy-to-lets will be payable within 30 days of completion from 2019.”

A partner from another firm wrote:

“The 3% increase on stamp duty charged on additional properties purchased from April 2016 is a further kick in the teeth for property investors following the announcement in the Budget that they will be subject to higher tax payable on their rental profits as a result of tax relief on mortgage interest being restricted to the basic rate of income tax.”

And:

“It was announced that 400,000 affordable new homes would be built across England including 200,000 starter homes by 2020-2021. A focus on help to buy and shared ownerships was clear with a new London help to buy scheme announced which will enable first time buyers with a 5% deposit to obtain an interest free loan of 40% of the value the property.

The incentives will certainly help to drive property sales – however with property prices continuing to rise, it is likely that new homes will still be out of reach for many.”

And as sales in London are driven up by this generous interest free loan, no doubt prices will be driven up as well.