Leading agent claims buy to let tax changes have 'very negligible impact'

Buy to let tax relief is still set to total around £15 billion annually even after changes to tax relief are introduced, according to research by letting agency ludlowthompson. 

The agency claims that after planned changes to tax reliefs become effective in 2018-19, landlords will still be able to claim approximately £6.3 billion on interest rate payments made on loans used to purchase buy to let property.

Chancellor George Osborne has already announced that he expects total revenue to rise to £1 billion by 2020-21 after reducing the tax reliefs available to buy to let investors on interest payments and property maintenance. From April 2016, the government will change the wear and tear allowance to the direct cost of replacing furnishings and white goods, instead of being 10 per cent of rental bills.

The agency’s chairman, Stephen Ludlow, says that after the Chancellor’s tax relief changes - capping relief at 20 per cent even if the landlord is a higher rate taxpayer - “buy to let still offers some of the most attractive tax breaks of all investments.”

He says that averaged over the lifetime of a buy to let investment recent tax relief and SDLT changes will have a “very negligible impact” on total returns to investors.

He insists that in the year to March 2014, the latest data available, landlords claimed £15.7 billion in expenses - some £6.6 billion of that came in tax relief claims.