22 August 2018
Against a background of suggestions that the UK has to make tough choices between raising taxes and cutting services, the Liberal Democrats recommend the complete scrapping of business rates and their replacement with a land value tax. But will it work?
31 January 2018
According to the government’s quarterly stamp duty statistics, the additional 3 per cent Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) charge aimed at people buying second homes or buy-to-let properties raised £2.05 billion stamp duty in 2017.
04 July 2017
HMRC’s generous rent-a-room scheme offers households the prospect of tax-free income from letting spare rooms during the Wimbledon tennis tournament and other summer events. But if receipts exceed the £7,500 limit and no tax return is filed, then the sweet taste of strawberries and cream may become very bitter when the taxman catches up with them.
22 May 2017
The Conservative Party manifesto promises that ‘we will work with private and public-sector house builders to capture the increase in land value created when they build’. That’s a land value tax, isn’t it?
04 May 2016
A recent report from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research argues that tax subsidies for housing are causing households to concentrate on buying property at the expense of other, more economically productive, forms of long-term saving. It’s an interesting, albeit flawed, line of argument, but isn’t there one very important factor missing from their reasoning?
17 March 2016
Tax authorities love property. You can see it, value it and send tax demands to the occupiers. It was therefore no surprise that in his Budget 2016 speech, after years spent increasing the tax yield from residential property, the Chancellor turned his attention to commercial property.
09 March 2016
With the referendum on the UK’s EU membership now set for 23 June, the Chancellor is coming under increasing pressure not to rock the boat with more tax hikes on Budget Day.
12 October 2015
Round-up of the latest tax news and developments...
