Angela Rayner faces CGT questions over council house sale

Angela Rayner faces CGT questions over council house sale

10:03 AM, 27th February 2024, About 3 months ago 12

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Angela Rayner, Labour’s shadow housing secretary, is coming under growing scrutiny as questions emerge over her potential liability for Capital Gains Tax (CGT) following the sale of her former council house.

The controversy has escalated with allegations that she provided misleading information about her living arrangements.

Ms Rayner, who purchased the property through the Right-to-Buy scheme in 2007, had previously vowed to reform RTB if she assumed office, leading to accusations of hypocrisy.

The Daily Mail reports that sources close to the MP maintain that she was not subject to the tax when she sold the house in Stockport, Manchester, back in 2015.

Raised concerns about Rayner’s residency status

However, the Conservative Party has raised concerns about Rayner’s residency status and neighbours claim she moved out of the property in 2009, prompting the Tories to write to her seeking clarification.

One Tory MP has also requested that Greater Manchester Police launch an inquiry after discrepancies emerged in her official addresses.

The timeline reveals that Ms Rayner remained on the electoral register at the ex-council house until its sale in 2015.

In 2010, she married Mark Rayner, who owned a separate home and Ms Rayner claims she did not move in with him until 2015 when she became an MP.

That leaves questions over their five-year separation.

Issue revolves around Ms Rayner’s electoral registration accuracy

Critics say the central issue revolves around Ms Rayner’s electoral registration accuracy during that period since providing false information carries the risk of imprisonment and substantial fines.

Also, her potential liability for capital gains tax hinges on whether the property did serve as her primary residence.

Tax regulations allow individuals to claim Private Residence Relief even if they do not physically reside in the property, provided they spent some time there.

A Labour spokesman told the Daily Mail: “Angela was registered to vote at the home she owned and lived in. The Tories are once again wasting everyone’s time with political game-playing.”

Calls for Angela Rayner to face a police probe

Meanwhile, calls are mounting for Greater Manchester Police to investigate Angela Rayner over the details of her living circumstances before selling her former council home.

Tory MP James Daly has written to the force, saying: “There is a strong public interest in looking into this matter.”

A spokesman for the Electoral Commission said: “Normally a person is resident at an address if it is their permanent home address. Whether someone is eligible to be on the register at an address is for the relevant electoral registration officer.

“It is an offence to knowingly provide false information in the voter registration application form. If convicted, a person may be imprisoned for up to six months and/or face an unlimited fine. This would be a matter for the police to investigate.”


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Comments

Beaver

15:52 PM, 22nd March 2024, About 2 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Reluctant Landlord at 22/03/2024 - 15:34
In the area I live the typical PCM rent for a 3 bed house is £1,500-2,000 PCM. Some of my direct neighbours rent 3 bed council houses with gardens and off-road parking and they pay £850PCM.

One of my neighbours bought their council house at a discount a few years ago. They are a typical working family...a husband and wife with two kids and a dog. They'd been living in the house for a while but were still enormously grateful that they had the privilege to buy their council house at a massive discount...and who wouldn't be grateful for that kind of massive privilege? Any decent person would be grateful for ever for that life-changing privilege wouldn't he?

These people are decent honest people and they are still my neighbours...still living in the council house that they bought. Whether you should have the 'right' to buy the biggest asset most people will ever own from the public purse at an enormous discount is debatable. But these people...ex council house tenants, now owner-occupiers courtesy of a policy introduced by Margaret Thatcher understood what a privilege this was and this is why they are still grateful.

These people are still my neighbours and they have been for the five years since they bought. They didn't abuse this privilege. But my understanding of this situation is that Angela Rayner's neighbours said that she wasn't living there.

Now if Angela Rayner did abuse this privilege and she had ever criticised anybody for mis-selling public assets, evading or avoiding personal tax, or behaving in a way that suggested he felt that the rules that apply to everybody else should not apply to him...well, whether a sale free of CGT was prosecutable or not...that would be the most outrageous act of hypocrisy wouldn't it?

It's not just the tax. It's the abuse of a privilege by somebody in a public position.

Michael Crofts

18:19 PM, 23rd March 2024, About 2 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 22/03/2024 - 15:52
Yes, it would be an outrageous act of hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is evil because it destroys trust and demeans those who trust the hypocrite. The hypocrite says, 'Do as I say', and leaves unspoken 'and not as I do'. Anyone who is a hypocrite should be driven from public office and never allowed to return. In politics hypocrisy ought to be an unforgivable sin.

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