Landlord tax planning – allocating property income to wife
I am a 40% tax payer and rent out two properties.
To minimize my tax bill I want to allocate some of the income from the properties to my wife who is currently not earning and so has her full tax free allowance.
I have two residential mortgages on the properties as I previously lived in them both. Therefore, I don’t want to change the mortgages. 
I would happily transfer half of the income if that was the easiest solution. To do this would I simply need to add my wife onto the deeds and then share the income 50/50 between us? If this is possible can I offset the full mortgage costs against my income and not my wifes portion of income?
Appreciate any advice and I appologise if this has been asnwered on an earlier forum.
Thanks in advance
Ian
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Member Since January 2011 - Comments: 12193 - Articles: 1395
2:27 PM, 13th February 2014, About 12 years ago
Hi Ian
First off, standard disclaimer, any guidance offered by members of an internet forum is only opinion and is not insured or regulated. On matters like this you should always seek professional tax planning advice from a qualified and insured tax advisor. The company I use provide this service to landlords across the UK – see >>> https://www.property118.com/member/?id=452
The good news is that you can transfer property to your spouse without incurring CGT.
Adding your wife to the deeds would change the legal ownership of the property and may well fall foul of your mortgage conditions. However, there would be nothing to stop you from transferring a beneficial interest in the equity to your wife 🙂
There was a very similar question posted about a year ago. My accountant did comment on that thread and the following link is to that particular comment >>> https://www.property118.com/clever-ways-for-landlords-to-use-up-two-tax-allowances/35815/comment-page-2/#comment-19231. I do recommend you to read the entire thread though 🙂
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