Summer Budget 2015 – Landlords Reactions

That’s a great idea BTL. May I suggest you ask them for all their calculations as well do see can see how they reach their conclusions?

Reply to the comment left by “John McKay” at “29/07/2015 – 12:27“:

Yes. I still haven’t told my family what I stand to lose. We ought to be commended, not condemned. If not for entrepreneurs, the country would grind to a halt. Being a landlord is entrepreneurial. Shelter sends me emails spitting hatred for LL, not knowing I’m one; I phoned them up, said surely we should be working together. Unfortunately, rogue landlords have not helped our reputation. I do hope you’re right. A mass demonstration or march to parliament of landlords has never been seen, though I would imagine hostility from crowds. The same crowds who would applaud teachers and fire-fighters…

Reply to the comment left by “Trendo ” at “29/07/2015 – 11:58“:

Yes, I think so, too, Trendo. Put me right off buy to let!

Reply to the comment left by “Stewart Jackson” at “29/07/2015 – 12:56“:

Stewart Jackson – I have a number of other questions to submit and this will be one of them.

I have just received an email from Rightmove asking me to complete a survey….1 of the questions asked if the recent budget proposals would have an effect on whether I would choose to sell my BTLs.

I’ll try to find a way of emailing them direct (as well as completing the survey).

Reply to the comment left by “Lisa Stux” at “29/07/2015 – 14:29“:

That is going to be one very useless and misleading survey result. I would venture 99% of LL have not got a scooby what is about to happen to them …and even when they get a sniff, the concern will be quashed by 98% of accountants who, right now , also, dont have a scooby .

There is much to do.

TO ALL MEMBERS – IMPORTANT

Please STOP promoting Ruhal’s petition.

He has written to the House of Commons Information Office asking them to take it down and to replace it with ours.
.

Reply to the comment left by “Connie Cheuk” at “29/07/2015 – 11:54“:

How about if Joe is not a teacher but owns a small shop and runs it on a self-employed basis.

Will the new way this is calculated throw him into the higher rate tax band?

Who most sympathy – small shop owners or teachers 🙂

In our case we pay ourselves a dividend from a ltd company. Dividends are not included in the calculation according to the hmrc website but our rental profit will increase by about £7,000. (excluded mortgage interest) My reading is we have to pay ourselves 7k less in dividends (which are now taxed at 7.5%) otherwise that 7k will be taxed at the higher rate.

Earning this much per annum means we can afford to pay the extra tax, so this wouldn’t generate any big boo-hoos from anyone. (a nice bonus was the dividend tax will cost us an extra 30k as a result of the rule change)

This is quite a small case, I’m sure others paying themselves this way may be more affected if their mortgage interest is much higher.

eg if your annual mortgage interest is £30,000 it seems you may have to reduce your dividend payments by that much or you’ll be paying a higher tax rate if you were to pay yourself the same dividend as the previous year.
There are a lot of small ie one man band operations out there who pay themselves dividends as a salary. So the choice would be pay extra 20% tax on a substantial part of your income or take a massive pay/dividend cut. So the dividend is already taxed at 20% so this would be an extra 27.5% on the dividend that throws you into the higher band.

Now imagine you accountant says that (as a previous post states on this thread) that we’ve got it all wrong it doesn’t work like that. Lets see if they are willing to write a letter of indemnity against they way they fill in our tax forms re this issue. As it seems quite likely that this dividend thing may be something the government can chase up after a couple of years.
I’m sure lack of clarity is to the HMRC’s benefit. I guess we’ll need a direct letter from HMRC to confirm that’s the way to work it out. No doubt it will be as ambiguous as possible!

I wonder if it is an incentive for the more unscrupulous not to declare rents and take rental payment in cash….
an unforeseen consequence throwing more tenants potentially into the nether world.
The unscrupulous are always first in line to take advantage of any unintended consequence of new legislation., .. just a thought, not relevant to the current campaign. But it does show how the people who follow the rules are screwed even more as they always leave a paper trail! Anyway I digress.

Out of pure spite I am thinking of deliberately no longer being an active economic unit 🙂

Reply to the comment left by “Trendo ” at “29/07/2015 – 14:43“:

I agree…..maybe we can persuade them to do another survey with some info on the front?

I will email them, but it won’t be til after the weekend (4 year old grandson arriving imminently!)

The petition may attract attention to the issue but will not result in a stand alone Parliamentary debate for the simple reason that the whole Finance Bill is due to be debated anyway as it progresses through its various stages (correct me if I’m wrong).. The next event will be the committee stage which is scheduled to commence on 8th September so continuing to lobby MPs to ensure that they understand the implications and encourage them to raise objections and table amendments is probably the most effective means of advancing the cause.