Chairman of the Residential Landlords Association, Alan Ward, argues that Britain has one of the toughest tax regimes for landlords in the western world.
He calls on the Chancellor to U-turn on the proposed changes for tax on buy-to-let and the 3 per cent stamp duty surcharge and warns that a failure to do so could push up rental costs.
Alongside this, Mr Ward suggests some changes to tax that he believes would help renters and first-time buyers, including removing the stamp duty charge for new homes that add to housing stock and cutting capital gains tax if a landlord sells to a new homeowner. Have your say on his suggestions in comments below.
Taxing times: Landlords face higher stamp duty on buying properties and their rental revenue being taxed rather than their profit, as full mortgage interest relief is removed
Alan Ward, chairman of the Residential Landlords Association, says: Landlords will be battered by one of the most hostile tax regimes in the western world come April – but the Treasury is being warned that rather than just penalising landlords, it is tenants who will be the real losers.
There is a move to tax landlords not on the profit they make, but on all their income.
The phasing restriction of mortgage interest relief to the basic rate of income tax along with other recent measures will make renting a much less attractive investment option for many.
At a time when increasing numbers of people rely on the rented sector, which will account for 25 per cent of all housing by 2025 according to forecasts, this will only reduce the growth in supply, driving up the cost of rents.
How the UK's tax on landlords compares to other countries
As the UK moves towards to the more common international model of more people renting and fewer buying, it is striking that the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has sought to take policy in the opposite direction of that in comparable countries.
In Germany, seen by many as the model to follow when it comes to the private rented sector, landlords are able to deduct all mortgage interest from their property income, deduct rental losses against other income and claim depreciation costs.
Alan Ward, chairman of the Residential Landlords Association, hopes the Government will rethink its planned removal of buy-to-let tax reliefs from April 2017
Capital gains tax is also not paid on disposal of property owned for more than 10 years.
In Australia, mortgage interest relief is allowed in full and investors can discount rental losses from their other income and gain a 50 per cent deduction on capital gains tax when they sell a property owned for more than one year.
In the United States, landlords are able to deduct mortgage interest from their rental income as well as offset a certain amount for depreciation each year.
The amount of capital gains tax also falls depending on the length of ownership.
The list goes on, but the point is that no other comparable country has a tax system that is so hostile to private rented housing provision.
The crackdown is wrongly-targeted
Rather than seeking to address the housing crisis, many of the policies introduced by Osborne were based not on evidence but played to the myths that have too often dominated debate around the sector.
It is argued that the changes are to level the playing field with owner occupiers, yet the Institute for Fiscal Studies has noted that landlords are not now, and never have been, taxed more favourably than home owners.
It is argued also that the tax rises support first-time buyers, yet the Government has produced no evidence to back up the assertion that landlords are crowding homeowners out of the market.
While there is undoubtedly anecdotal evidence of competition between landlords and buyers in specific cases the issue is whether this is a widespread phenomenon.
A report by the London School of Economics last year in fact concluded that only a 'minority' of house sales involved bids from landlords and first-time buyers.
As the National Audit Office recently reported, since 2006 the cost of private rented housing has broadly followed changes in earnings across England.
These tax changes will inevitably place upwards pressure on market rents that can only make life more difficult for the Prime Minister’s so-called JAMs (those who are just about managing) and those tenants wanting to save for a deposit.
How to change the tax to help renters and first-time buyers
If we are to secure the new homes to rent we need the new Chancellor, Philip Hammond, in his forthcoming Budget should get behind the majority of good individuals that make up the country’s landlord population and who supply the overwhelming majority of rented housing.
That means halting the planned changes to mortgage interest relief, or at the very least only applying it to new borrowing for new homes to rent.
Retrospective taxation cannot be right.
It means also reviewing the 3 per cent stamp duty on the purchase of homes to rent.
This is in effect a tax on new homes which is nonsensical when more homes, of all types, are desperately needed.
Instead this levy should not be applied where landlords are investing in housing which adds to the overall number of homes available.
Help could also be given to tenants wishing to buy by applying the new lower 20 per cent rate of capital gains tax where a landlord sells a property to an occupying tenant.
The Budget provides an important opportunity to support a thriving rental market that is good for tenants, good for the economy, and good for Treasury revenue.
We urge the Government to seize the opportunity with both hands.