Campaign to remove George Osborne from the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer

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15:05 PM, 4th April 2016, About 9 years ago 14

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Sharing below my email sent to David Cameron earlier today – perhaps bombarding his Inbox with similar may start to get the message across?

“Dear Mr Cameron

I write to implore you to remove George Osborne from the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The latest debacle and u-turn over cuts to disability benefits is just the latest in a long line of his disastrous budget proposals, from the controversial “pasty tax” in 2012, through the aborted reduction in working tax credits in 2015.

Osborne’s propensity to grab at revenue-raising or cost-reduction ideas without proper consultation or assessment of the consequences would make him a national laughing stock if the implications of his incompetence weren’t so serious.

One such fiscal policy change is the Clause 24 attack on buy-to-let landlords announced in his Summer Budget 2015. This is a ticking time bomb set to turn the current housing crisis into a national disaster with the poorest tenants made homeless as landlords are forced to sell, and the least well-off landlords encumbered with fixed-term mortgages having to pay tax on money which they simply don’t have, it having already been paid to their lender as interest. This will, incredibly, be the only example in the western world of an infinite rate of tax and, more incredibly, it has been introduced by a British Conservative government. It will lead to massive pressure on local authorities to house the newly homeless, landlords made bankrupt by HMRC and a crash in house prices in many parts of the UK, many of which have not yet seen prices fully recover from the 2008 crash.

I should mention here that my husband and I are professional, university graduates in our fifties. We are both lifelong supporters of the Conservative Party and live in the Tatton constituency, we therefore – much to our horror now – voted for George Osborne in the last four general elections. We have a small number of modest but comfortable buy-to-let houses, which we have refurbished and now manage ourselves, with happy long-term tenants. We could never have expected that our decision to plan for our retirement and the future financial security of our children by buying properties would lead to us become the target of an ill thought-out tax raising attack from our own MP.

Surely you will be aware of the long list of voices raised to oppose this tax? This includes: the Treasury Select Committee; the Institute of Fiscal Studies; the Council of Mortgage Lenders; the Institute of Chartered Accountants; the London School of Economics; The Telegraph; Lord Flight; Professor Michael Ball – it is inconceivable that they are all wrong and George Osborne, David Gauke and a group of Treasury officials are right.

Clause 24 was George Osborne’s ill-conceived knee-jerk response to Mark Carney’s warning of the risks to the economy of uncontrolled buy-to-let lending. Now that we have tighter lending criteria and the 3% SDLT levy this is more than sufficient to dampen demand for future BTL borrowing.

It is therefore time to ditch Clause 24, which penalises hard working responsible citizens for past investment decisions. More importantly it is time to ditch George Osborne for making such a complete hash of his job ever since he naively interpreted the unexpected Tory majority as giving him carte blanche to ride roughshod over people’s lives and finances.

One wonders who George Osborne thought he was sneering at when he referred to “landlords” during last year’s Autumn Statement speech – if only he had realised it included a huge number of former Tory supporters who will now never again vote for the Conservative Party.

What a fool – it’s time for him to go.”

Tatton Landlord

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Comments

neils26

9:47 AM, 12th April 2016, About 9 years ago

He is also my local MP, and I exchanged three emails with him early in this process. There's total ignorance there, and he either doesn't understand or doesn't care about the 'unintended consequences'. Hope the judicial review achieves something, but no good if it takes five years...

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Whiteskifreak Surrey

13:23 PM, 12th April 2016, About 9 years ago

Let's see what will happen after today's revelation and tax disclosure. I would be interested to know if the property Gidiot rents out is mortgaged and how long for. I bet he is not going to be affected by the TT (clause 24).
I have written to my MP (Cons.) asking for his qualifications to do the job, his 'adviser' to 'Tenant's Tax' (25 y.o. geography graduate), his understanding of the consequences... I have been waiting the best part of 2 months to get a reply.
I like the letter to DC, reflects exactly the position we are in and I am very much inclined to send it anyway.
Even knowing that he and nobody in his office gives a dam...

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Darlington Landlord

21:05 PM, 28th April 2016, About 9 years ago

The upcoming local government and PCC elections mean we have a chance to register a protest vote for anyone except the conservatives.
I for one will be doing so!

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Ethical Man

3:38 AM, 1st May 2016, About 9 years ago

There is a lot of anger towards George Osborne on this site because the various measures he has announced will leave buy to let landlords less well off than they were anticipating. However George Osborne is obliged to consider the country as a whole when making his policies. On this measure George Osborne is right to make the BTL changes he has. I hope that understanding this will help readers regain their peace of mind.
1) Every house owned as a buy to let is one less house owned by the occupier (assuming no change in the number of vacant properties or second home). The number of buy to lets has increased in line with the fall in the number of owner occupied houses. The government has more of an obligation to ensure that each person or family can afford their own home than to ensure buy to let landlords can sustain and augment their portfolios. Therefore, the government is right to take measures to reduce the number of buy to let properties, thereby making owner occupiers more able to buy. You cannot please everyone and it is fair to prioritise people buying their first home over people buying their fifth or fifteenth.
2) It is sometimes claimed on this forum that George Osborne’s measures will lead to a shortage of housing to let. However there is no reason to think this is true. The number of buy to let properties has increased massively over recent years – things worked perfectly well previously when there were a higher proportion of owner occupiers. Moreover property remains a very attractive investment for those with cash – which is many people given the pension freedoms the government has provided – and for those who are incorporated. Thus the total number of buy to let properties is unlikely to fall dramatically. The market will reach equilibrium one way or another, with prices perhaps rising less fast because there are fewer buy to let landlords seeking to purchase, thereby making housing more affordable for owner occupiers.
3) Is George Osborne being unfair to landlords in moving the posts? The thing to ask yourself is whether when you first got into buy to let you would still have done so if you knew these new rules would be implemented now. Most people on this forum have made far more from buy to let than they would have in any other career available to them, so the answer for them is yes. In which case they should be grateful for having had such a good run. Those who recently came into the business and who borrowed heavily so who have not yet had time to benefit from substantial capital gains are still entitled to feel aggrieved – but then so does the thirty something who cannot afford a house because buy to let landlords are pushing up prices. When rules change, as they sometimes must in response to circumstances, there will always be some who lose out as a result. The government simply has to weigh benefits as best they can. And as mention in 1 above, it is right for the government to prioritize the individual who seeks to own his first home.

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