Rental Sector Tax Grab - leading agency boss speaks out

This is a brilliant case of comparing apples with oranges. The issue raised by the government is that particularly in two areas, the Lake District and Cornwall, housing shortages have been caused by people renting out their homes as holiday lets with a significantly reduced tax liability over long term Landlords

Having empty homes in Wales, or under used second homes is not justification for allowing holiday lets to attract less tax liability .Calling for other types of property to be taxed and not their own is churlish at best

Should this quote not read.

"it makes more sense to tax these vacant buildings or underused second homes, or short term holiday lets. A tax such as his would also encourage people to either sell holiday lets, empty second homes or let them."

The financial contribution or otherwise that holiday lets industry in terms of contribution and employment it makes to the economy is irrelevant. This proposal simply is an introduction of a tax system which is already in place in the private rental sector and has been for a number of years.

In the article, they were certainly no complaints about the current tax burden felt by these landlords unlike those who operate in the long-term private sector and who have seen their tax burden and mortgage cost steadily increase over a number of years.

That is without mentioning the cost of compliance to every increasing regulation within the private rental sector that isn’t applied to the holiday let business

Perhaps what might be equitable would be for the short-term holiday business to lobby the government to allow the same tax breaks and reduced compliance to long-term landlords as they enjoy. This would make it more attractive to rent property on a long-term basis.

Using the argument that the holiday let business contributes £27.7 billion allegedly to the economy and that there are already 100,000 empty properties is no justification for the government not introducing a tax in line with the private rental sector.

I wonder if this person works for the government or one of the hate gangs, divide and conquer
I was a long term landlord over 50 years to be passed onto family.
How does it help us to make holiday let landlords the victims of the same injustice that we suffer ?
As a result of the discrimination and injustice against landlords bought a few properties in europe best thing I ever did.
European landlords are treated the same as every other business , none of the discrimination and hate crime suffered by British landlords and their families
So as more properties are sold we will regrettably be no longer housing British families we will be housing Europeans sad but a direct result of the injustice discrimination and hate out families suffer

That hospitality is taxed lower than housing is, quite frankly, a disgrace. S24 should (if not removed entirely) be flipped to holiday/short term accommodation. Ben Edgar Spier singing the woes of holiday lets is laughable. His business, and the sector as a whole, has benefitted immensely from the imbalance of regulation and tax. The exodus from PRS to holiday let is well-documented so to bemoan/dismiss that this impacts housing supply and pricing is dangerous or deranged. However, the only party to blame is our government. With Housing Ministers who take longer to eat their Sunday roast than they do staying in this role and a litany of changes disadvantaging the housing provided by PRS landlords against the hospitality markets this 'perfect storm' is the making of government and no one else.