HMRC “Tackling the Hidden Economy”

How is it that there was no consultation before George Osbornes clause 24 tax grab which selectively and deliberately taxes landlords on their turnover unlike any other business profession in the UK ? Oh I know because they can get away with this disgraceful scam without the public either knowing or caring despite it now leading to significant increases in homelessness!

I hope they are going to look at all areas of the ecconomy as when I rented out a flat in October I had several people admit they had untaxed income and as a result would not have passed referencing.
One guy told me he was employed as a roofer and earned £650 cash every week so it would seem that both he and his boss were not paying the correct amount of Tax. There were two other guys that came both working full time one of whom also had a part time job paid cash and the other also ran a business that he did not declare the income from.

Brighton and Hove City Council are bringing in further additional licensing schemes across more wards, replacing the existing additional licensing schemes and bringing in selective licensing schemes for all privately rented properties not caught under the other schemes. Even though the existing schemes are questionable on how they have been managed and the extreme discrepancy in standards between inspectors.

The whole licensing consultation process for the new schemes has bee a farce with with leading questions on door to door questionnaires, the people questioned were invariably tenants in HMO properties with multiple questionnaires filled out per property. The landlords are not living in the area so had little input. The results from the consultation were then questionably interpreted. With the whole process appearing fated from the start ie the council has been preparing to introduce the schemes before the consultation process came back.

The main Landlord bodies both the NLA and RLA did not turn up to any meetings leaving the Southern Landlord Association to try and fight the council alone.

Us as landlords need to learn to stand together and fight back against the constant onslaught against us. licensing schemes are simply a means to raise revenue so the cost of environmental health inspectors is off set against private rented licensing costs instead of the councils own pocket even though a substantial amount of issues they are involved in are caused by social housing and disrepair from owner occupiers.

We have questioned the council to use private RICS chartered surveyors for licensing inspections to maintain inspection standards, this has been turned down at present. This is another sign the schemes are just used to fund existing staff and fund a councils inefficiency that will in the end put more costs back on the tenants.

It seems that Local Authorities are now to become narks for the taxman. They find it hard enough to their own business competently. How does anyone think that they could act as a efficient agent for HMRC? Also LAs are well famous for leaking personal and confidential information. What is there to suggest they would not broadcast widely with any personal financial/tax information they might acquire, if only by mistake?

Will similar requirements be imposed on those who provide Council and housing association accommodation? Is there any reason to suppose that they don't also have tenants living on the black economy?

Tim's complaints about lack of support from NLA in fighting a selective licensing proposal from Brighton & Hove Council are misplaced. I am chairman of the Dorset Branch of the NLA. About a year ago we were faced with a proposal to introduce selective licensing in a specified area of Bournemouth. This has been postponed indefinitely -- which we believe really means abandoned. We had help and advice from NLA head office in London, but we did most of the leg work, including coordinated responses to the consultation and lobbying of councillors. You cannot expect your battles to be fought for you. But NLA, and no doubt RLA, will give help and specialist advice. Whether SLA has the resources to do that I don't know. But get together and make sure you have an active local landlords' organisation affiliated to one of the national organisations.. Incidentally we were told of a similar consultation elsewhere in the country at the end of which the relevant local authority announced that it had received about 20 responses in favour of its proposals and only one against them, ignoring that that response was from NLA which represents about 70,000 landlords across the country.

HMRC seems to have forgotten the fact of life that if you reduce tax rates receipts go up -- although not necessarily to the extent they did after the 1979 election when Mrs Thatcher reduced the marginal rate of income tax from 98% (yes, really) to 83%, to 60%, and then to 40%.