Why Labour’s despicable landlord tax raid will punish tenants

I know that the country is skint, but we must be impressed with Labour’s remarkable new trick to increase a tax before its previous increase has even arrived.

Presumably, landlords should be grateful the Chancellor John Healey stopped at two announcements before sending us the bill.

They say Labour is the party for working people? Don’t make me laugh.

Working people need to rent homes that are near their jobs, somewhere their children can settle, somewhere that does not swallow every spare pound.

Yet this government has chosen another policy which its own fiscal watchdog warns risks pushing rents higher.

Two raids, one bill

Budget 2026 adds two percentage points to the property income tax increases announced in 2025 by our allegedly fellow landlord, Rachel Reeves.

Both land in April 2027, taking rates to 24%, 44% and 49% in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Treasury’s tax document confirms the rates and start date.

Consider this: £10,000 of taxable property income falling entirely within the basic-rate band, with no finance-cost tax reduction.

Moving from 20% to 24% increases the bill from £2,000 to £2,400.

That is a 20% increase in the tax payable on that income.

Mr Healey, who looks like a grim Harry Potter character, can dress it up as another two percentage points, but the combined £400 increase is real enough.

Landlords don’t work

The Chancellor even had the brass neck to tell BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he wanted to protect income that was earned through employment.

So, the government still don’t understand or believe that being a landlord is a job.

Starmer didn’t and now this clown seems to think that tenants lob envelopes stuffed with cash into our bank accounts and that there’s no paperwork, no maintenance and no legal obligations.

This is as frustrating as it is demeaning.

They hate us. They don’t want to know what being a landlord is about.

For a stressed landlord already wondering whether to keep a property, another recurring cost could settle the argument.

And there is something particularly galling about being expected to plan years ahead while ministers keep revising the sums.

A landlord deciding whether to replace a kitchen or retain a property needs some confidence about what will remain after tax.

Repeated tax surprises make that decision harder, even before the extra money leaves the account.

Tenants cannot simply sell up

The most damaging evidence for this nonsense increase in tax comes from the Office for Budget Responsibility’s October outlook.

Paragraph 3.46 describes the combined increases as ‘a material reduction in returns to private landlords’.

It warns that discouraging new entrants and prompting existing landlords to leave risks reducing supply and increasing rents over time.

These are cumulative effects, including earlier measures, rather than a prediction that every rent will rise immediately.

The NRLA’s Ben Beadle has also warned that the Chancellor has made life harder for tenants, pointing to the consequences for rents and available homes.

Of course, selling a house does not make it disappear.

Some sales help first-time buyers, and that deserves acknowledging.

But the tenant who cannot obtain a mortgage does not suddenly become a buyer because their landlord has had enough.

They still need somewhere to rent.

That is why I think this tax rise could prove even worse for tenants.

A landlord may eventually withdraw their investment, but a tenant cannot withdraw their need for a home.

Who gets the breathing space?

The Budget promises households breathing space and calls the tax changes fair and proportionate.

It says 84% of income taxpayers will be unaffected.

Unaffected by the direct tax change, perhaps.

But that offers precious little reassurance to someone facing higher housing costs.

Ministers should explain how discouraging investment in homes to let helps the people who need them.

Until then, spare us the speeches about working people.

They will be working even harder to pay the rent.

Until next time,

The Landlord Crusader