Income tax paid by buy to let landlords now exceeds £3.8 billion annually – that’s more than double Tesco’s entire annual tax bill.
Research by the National Landlords Association shows that – assuming typical deductions are made for regular maintenance, finance costs, and miscellaneous legal and management expenses – landlords in England have a combined taxable income in excess of £19.1 billion.
Even if all these pay only the basic rate of Income Tax (and many will pay far more) this equates to an estimated annual contribution of £3.8 billion in Income Tax alone or £1,668 per landlord.
This is before additional liabilities such as Stamp Duty, Capital Gains Tax, VAT, and the Additional Property Levy are taken into account.
Meanwhile, the UK’s largest supermarket chain, Tesco PLC, paid £1.63 billion in tax in 2018.
“Far from being subsidised by the taxpayer, private landlords make a significant contribution to the public purse. Furthermore, changes to landlord taxation made in 2015 are forecast to increase HM Treasury’s receipts from landlords by almost £2 billion, pushing total estimated Income Tax contributions to £5.7 billion in years to come” according to NLA chief executive Richard Lambert.
“These dramatic increases in landlords’ tax liabilities in the UK have led many to conclude that it is no longer possible to achieve a reasonable return on investment, prompting them to sell their properties and close their businesses. This is in stark contrast to the relatively small sums paid by many major retailers and online giants” he continues.
“The NLA’s conservative estimate of landlords’ tax liability suggests that they pay more than twice as much in Income Tax alone than Tesco’s entire tax bill and a staggering 62 times Amazon’s Corporation Tax bill in the UK.”
