A simple and efficient way for Property118 members to further fight Clause 24

Reply to the comment left by "CaZ " at "29/12/2015 - 13:54":

No problem 🙂

Point 3 wasn't on my own message, but I couldn't see the harm in adding it, now that there's a Facebook page too.

"Dear Sir/Madam,

Though I am not writing to you regarding your property vacancy, this message concerns a matter likely of even greater importance to yourself.

Clause 24 of the Finance Act 2015-16 is going to transform the profits of many landlords into losses, by drastically multiplying their tax liability. It will do this by calculating their tax bill not merely from their net profit (as is the case right now), but from their deemed profits measured prior to the deduction of mortgage interest (only 20% of the mortgage costs are given back as an allowance/tax relief). Rents will therefore be forced to rise to compensate for the government taxing profits that do not exist.

You can find out in detail how the tax will work on page 1 of the "Budget 2015 - Landlord Reactions" thread of the website Property118. Here you will also be able to download a highly accurate spreadsheet, into which you can input your own job income, rental income and mortgage expenses to calculate precisely how your own personal tax liability will change as a result of Clause 24.

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THERE ARE SOME SIMPLE AND HIGHLY EFFECTIVE WAYS TO FIGHT THE IMPOSITION OF THIS GROSSLY UNFAIR TAX MEASURE:

1) Sign the official online petition against Clause 24 and share a link to it on your Facebook page. I am unable to post the URL in this message, but you can easily find it by typing "buy to let petition" into Google.

2) Pledge a donation towards the Crowd-Funded legal action against Clause 24. Again I cannot share the URL via Gumtree but you can easily find the page by typing "clause 24 crowd justice" into Google. Payment will only be collected from your bank account when the campaign’s target is eventually reached. Please share a link to the Crowd-Justice page on your Facebook stream as well.

3) Take a second to Like the page “Judicial Review of Clause 24 - Alice in Wonderland Tax Grab" on Facebook.

4) Immediately contact your local MP and make plain the damage Clause 24 will inflict upon your finances and to your tenants. The most effective way to do this, is by arranging a face-to-face meeting at their constituency surgery, during which you can talk your MP through a printout of your resulting finances, taken from the spreadsheet downloaded at Property118 (as mentioned earlier). If for logistical reasons you cannot arrange a face-to-face meeting, please try to support your written correspondence with a copy of these calculated financials.

5) Write to the primary overseers of this change to the tax system, explaining the damage it is destined to inflict. These overseers are George Osborne and David Gauke. I cannot put their e-mail addresses into this message, but you will be able to find them easily using Google or the UK Parliament website.

6) Copy and paste the above instructions into an e-mail and send it to every landlord, letting agent and mortgage broker that you know. At this point you will be able to send URL and e-mail addresses, so please feel free to add them to the above points.

Completing the above tasks is a straightforward and effective procedure, which may further inspire you to a far greater individual contribution to the campaign against Clause 24."

Please feel free to plagiarise : )

Gumtree blocks messages with URLs and e-mail addresses, so as you can see I've had to include additional instructions for finding the pages.

Liked 🙂