The HMRC Let Property Campaign – worth its weight in gold!

Over the years numerous ‘campaigns’ have come and gone whereby HMRC have almost given taxpayers an Amnesty to declare their previously undeclared income at very favourable terms.

The Let Property Campaign.- LPC- has remained in force and has continued for many many years and can be utilised to gain extremely favourable outcomes for those needing to declare rental income from properties that for any reason has not been declared in the past.

The campaign is non-judgemental and does not involve anyone in face-to-face meetings with HMRC or going through lengthy and protracted correspondence with them.

It is left up to a taxpayer or their advisors to gather all of the information needed to calculate the income and the expenses allowed, in order  to arrive at the net taxable income. This is then declared online, the tax calculated along with interest and a penalty charge and within a few weeks timeframe the whole matter can be concluded to the Revenue’s satisfaction and the tax paid.

Time to pay arrangements can also be put into place for those without the funds to settle immediately.

So are you at risk of HMRC writing to you regarding historic rental income.

HMRC are on the ball these days with the information gathering processes from various third-party sources. So it is normally only a matter of time before they come onto you from the information in their possession.

Some of the sources and methods they use to gather the information on undisclosed rental income are as follows.

Clearly HMRC are the governing body for stamp duty land tax records, and they are aware of when a property is purchased and stamp duty is payable. They therefore hold records of all properties purchased and will know if multiple properties have been purchased alerting them to the fact that they may be rental properties.

They have instant access to the Land Registry which of course holds records on all properties in England and Wales.

HMRC have made regular use of estate agents to request information as they are regularly used as letting agents and have full details of income received by individuals.

One of the main sources of information used is what HMRC call the ‘voters list’. This is details of everyone registered on the electoral role at an individual property. They can also see who pays the council tax and utility bills at an individual property. From this it is easy to see whether tenants occupy a property or the owner of it.

All of this brought together means they already know everything about the property and possibly the landlord before they even write to him or her.

It is therefore a cost-effective route to contact us in order to deal with the Let Property Campaign declaration for you, as this provides an opportunity for landlords who owe any tax from their letting income in the UK to bring themselves up-to-date and get a clean sheet on the best possible terms that there are.

Sadly, you cannot use the Property campaign for commercial properties or those owned by companies but there are other routes to make those  voluntary  disclosures that we are happy to discuss with you.

Please contact us if you think you owe tax on your rental income

Call Andy on 07879 464577

Alex on 07538 418839

Lindsay on 07584 706664

Or email her on Lindsay@lhtax.co.uk