Renting Privately? Rent rises heading your way...

You would think the last thing the UK tax system needs is yet more complexity. But George Osbourne can't resist playing politics - with yet another budget announcement designed entirely around the headline it generates and to hell with the consequences.

And so in today's budget we have the hit on interest relief for buy-to-let landlords. As the budget report (para 1.191) says:

'The government will restrict the relief on finance costs that landlords of residential property can get to the basic rate of income tax. The restriction will be phased in over 4 years, starting from April 2017. This will reduce the distorting effect the tax treatment of property has on investment and mean individual landlords are not treated differently based on the rate of income tax that they pay. It will also shift the balance between landlords and homeowners.'

At this point I'm struggling to understand what this even means. The stuff about different treatment of landlords based on their tax rates is complete doublespeak - this _introduces_ differential treatment.

My understanding is that interest is currently a 100% allowable deduction against the rental income landlords derive from their letting business - it isn't a relief against tax paid, so who knows what the actual impact of this tax change is going to be. But I think we can safely assume that at soon as your income goes above the threshold for paying 40% tax, as well having to pay 40% tax on the additional income, if you have a buy to let property, something bad is going to happen to your ability to offset your interest costs against your rental income, and your effective marginal tax rate on each extra £1 of income will rocket - to 60% maybe - hard to tell - but yet another daft discontinuity in marginal tax rates depending on your circumstances, to add to the child benefit tax changes and other tweaking that now goes on at arbitrary points in the income scale.

The baying mob at this point is probably screaming, yeah, go George - stuff those evil buy-to-let landlords and their profiteering high rents. Personally, I think the baying mob is wrong. Rents are set by the balance between supply and demand (that's basic economics), not some grand collusion between millions of small landlords. Buy to let landlords frequently accept rents that represent a terrible return on a risky asset - 3-4% rental yield before costs in many cases - and interest is a very real cash cost to the landlord - it gets tax relief for a good reason.

But lets go with it, and assume you think this is a great idea in principle - let's predict what will now happen.

If you are an affected landlord, your marginal tax rate is now so high that buy to let property investment is not going to make much sense. If you are close to the higher rate threshold, you might decide to put more cash into your pension to go under the threshold, effectively getting relief on the pension contributions at your new much higher marginal tax rate and avoiding the new charge.

The more enterprising taxpayers who aren't in a position to do this, will look for other forms of tax avoidance. Maybe buy properties in a limited company wrapper, where interest will presumably still be a fully allowable expense. Cue dozens more pages in the UK's already overbloated tax code describing new emergency anti-avoidance measures the Chancellor will dream up to stop this wicked reluctance to submit to his will, and try to frame the circumstances in which a property sold to a limited company will be taxed as if it is owned by the person who owns some or all of the shares. This may work, but if so, it may also impact on companies like Property Partner, setup to provide easy access to the buy to let market for those that don't want to buy a whole property themselves (or will this just be an easy way round the new rules?).

But the most likely outcome is that many buy-to-let landlords on higher rate tax will choose to sell up. This will inevitably increase private sector rents. It may not be much consolation to those trying to buy properties either, as the lower funding from buy-to-let investors will probably also restrict the supply of new housing. Some new developments relying on the capital provided by buy-to-let landlords may not happen, or be seriously delayed, making things worse for everyone looking to buy or rent. There is also the regional aspect - in London I suspect almost all buy-to-let landlords are higher rate taxpayers, so the situation there for people looking to rent might deteriorate very rapidly.

There could be further knock on effects on the supply of private rental property, as even landlords not affected are aghast at the arbitrary nature of the changes made to the UK tax system, and decide their low returns on property don't reflect the risks, newly expanded to include political risks.

I am a buy to let landlord, but I think I am going to do OK out of this - my rent and my property value should go up in the medium term - I just pity people looking for private rental accommodation. I passionately believe that government should legislate in a way that really would seriously harm existing buy to let landlords investors like me - by making it easier for the market to build lots more houses, so that the market value of housing falls, reducing the cost to both buy and rent property - but I am still a landlord as sadly I don't believe they will do this any time soon. Indeed the change announced today will have the opposite effect - it will hit those currently providing a key source of funding for new housebuilding so reduce new housing supply, it will increase rents whilst creating a yet more complex tax code - this is another truly dreadful tax change.

Who'd be an MP?

The new MP for my neighbouring constituency, Lucy Frazer, made her maiden speech in parliament on 4th June. You can read the whole thing here - you might think it competent and pretty uncontroversial, whilst referring to the history of the area (that's what maiden speeches are supposed to be...). Indeed, shortly after it was made, Chris Stevens, the new SNP MP for Glasgow South West was moved to 'praise the maiden speeches we have heard so far today from the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) and the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), despite our political and, as has been outlined, historical differences.'

The speech contained the following passage:

And it was the home of Oliver Cromwell, who defeated the Scots at Dunbar, incorporated Scotland into his protectorate and transported the Scots as slaves to the colonies. Now, there is an answer to the West Lothian question—but not one, of course, that I would recommend.

What to make of that? Reasonable attempt at humour - the absurdity of something as obnoxious as transportation being suggested as a solution to a modern political problem? Slightly ill-advised foray into a controversial (albeit nearly 400 year old) historical incident?

Fast forward a couple of days, and thanks to the power of the internet, how about these assessments:

Resign...your speech was disgusting

You are a disgrace to society

Bigoted disgrace. Shame on you.

Or maybe this one:

The only people you have to mock are your wanker parents who conceived you, and always keep in mind: You are a bloody parasite paid by our taxes, do not forget that hooker !!!

Then of course no assessment of a Conservative party politician is complete without:

Racist.

Really quite racist in fact:

Your speech in the HoC has to be one of the most racist things I have seen in Parliament, you should apologise immediately

Or to go further:

Don't the Tories vet their candidates for nazi views before they select them ? Are you the MP for Auswich ? (sic)

You can read the full horror of some of the comments on a thread on Lucy's facebook page about a harmless meeting with a local housing association that has now had nearly 500 comments.

The joy of Facebook is you can find out much about the people making these comments. You can find what types of thing they link to and find amusing. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader - but its no surprise that a great number of those commenting live in Scotland and probably have never met Ms Frazer or visited SE Cambridgeshire. I'm not shocked or outraged by the behaviour of the 'Cybernats' - I'm actually pretty sad.

Because at the end of it, you think 'who on earth would want to be an MP and have to put up with this level of appalling and undeserved abuse.'? And the answer is obvious - it will tend to be those that really couldn't care less about what people think of them or their behaviour. Our lovely friends from north of the border, once they calm down from their ultra-nationalistic fervour, might want to consider if that was really the outcome they were looking for as they typed away furiously on their keyboards.

Elsewhere in her maiden speech, Lucy mentions

My great-grandparents fled to this country with nothing, with no possessions and no money, not even speaking the language, and Britain gave them a home. It gave them hope and it gave them a future.

I just hope that there hasn't been too much of that optimism destroyed over the last couple of days.

Say yes to the New Chesterton Foot and Cycle Bridge

The distinctly anonymous ‘Friends of Ditton Meadows’ http://www.friendsofdittonmeadows.org.uk/ has been setup to ‘To protect Ditton Meadows from the current threat of development, namely the proposed cycle and foot bridge across the meadow.’ They have other objectives like ‘To oppose the talked about guided bus-way across the meadows’ and ‘To oppose any development on the meadows in the future.’ But as nobody is planning a busway or other development, it’s fair to say their main aim is opposition to a new cycle/footbridge across the common.

So what is planned? Fingers crossed, a new station will open in Chesterton in 2016. A new cycle and footbridge next to the existing railway bridge is being planned to link the common with the new station. The County Council has been and continues to consult residents on this project.

What impact will this have on the common? There are lots of pretty pictures of Ditton Meadows on their website - but not a single view pictured will change as a result of the proposed new bridge. That’s because it will occupy a tiny proportion of the common, and will only ever be visible with the backdrop of a not particularly picturesque railway bridge. I’m struggling to see how anyone can seriously oppose this on the grounds of its impacts to the commons as these are negligible.

However, not building the new bridge will be really BAD NEWS for lots of reasons. It will stop lots of residents of Abbey Ward and Fen Ditton from easily accessing the new station by foot and cycle (or at all!) – losing them much of the economic benefits. Some will drive, further clogging up Newmarket Road and Chesterton. Others will take the approx 1 mile detour over the Green Dragon bridge – like it isn’t already busy enough at peak hours. Fellow Chesterton residents will also miss out on a more convenient new route to Abbey, Fen Ditton and ultimately to the Mill Road area, Station and Addenbrookes, when the Chisholm Trail is built.

I hope our elected representatives will be supportive of the new bridge, but it would be a disaster if a few vocal opponents were able to block a vital part of the sustainable transport infrastructure needed in a growing Cambridge. Please don’t just rely on them to make the right decision – write to them today (you can use the website www.writetothem.com to find and contact your local Councillors) and urge them to make sure this bridge happens.

Its Time to Abolish the TV Licence

Its time for a proper campaign for the abolition of the TV licence. There are lots of websites opposing the licence (e.g. http://www.tvlicenceresistance.info, http://licencefree.co.uk/, http://tv-licensing.blogspot.co.uk etc), and various MPs are now getting in on the act, but nothing that could be called an organised campaign - that is, one that sets out with the sole aim of the abolition of the TV licence fee in its current form, brings together all its opponents and raises the funds necessary to bring the campaign to fruition.

Why would anyone want to support this campaign? I'm pretty agnostic about the merits of the BBC. They make some quite good programs (that I don't watch many of...). They are also reasonably authoritative and fair in reporting many issues (which makes it all the more annoying that they use this perceived neutrality to push their biases). The BBC in its current form may also be at risk without the TV licence funding it - but there are many alternatives, subscriptions, advertising, direct government grants - and what should replace the TV licence isn't a relevant consideration if the current funding mechanism is so unacceptable.

So what makes the tv licence so unacceptable:

1) It is unfair.
As a flat tax, levied across most of the population, its costs are disproportionately hard to bear for those on low incomes. As a result, many thousands of low income households have been fined or people even imprisoned for not paying it.

2) The methods essential to enforce the tv licence are unacceptable in a free, modern society.
Evidence of whether or not a licensable activity is being undertaken by an individual can only be determined by gross intrusions into personal privacy, and even then only if there is almost 100% takeup of the licence, such that anyone without a licence can be bullied, threatened and harassed as if they were breaking the law. With modern methods of watching broadcast TV, it is pretty much impossible to determine if the law is being complied with unless you give those responsible for enforcement the power to enter any unlicensed property unannounced and to have a snoop around. Such a power is never going to be acceptable in a free society, so the only other tactic available for enforcement is one of bullying and harassment - personal visits and threatening letters (often designed to deceive about the requirements of licensing or the powers of those enforcing it) targeted at all unlicensed premises. The aim is to scare people into being licensed, or for people to inadvertently incriminate themselves. With so much consumer protection around misleading claims from suppliers, and criminal sanctions available against most types of harassment, it is unclear how TV licensing gets away with its tactics.

As technology moves on and fewer people need or want to watch live broadcast TV, those legally licence free can only increase, and with it the anger at the tactics of tv licensing. It is time for the TV licence to be abolished, and funding for the BBC to be moved to a more sustainable long term arrangement. So who's up for making it happen?

(Memo to self - must work out the difference between licence and license.)
(Memo to others - I currently have a TV licence as I watch live TV.)

A14 Tolls

Good news and all credit to (Conservative) MPs in the region for getting tolls on the new A14 upgrade dropped - I have no doubt it is lobbying by MPs from across the region that has caused tolling to be abandoned. 

But Cambridgeshire residents have seen this all before with plans for congestion charging in Cambridge - we were told cash for transport improvements would only be available if a congestion charge was introduced, much time and cash was wasted before it became clear the plans were never going to be acceptable. How often are we going to have to put up with governments looking at this region and thinking, great, cash cow, lets have another go at making them a guinea pig for road charging schemes. 

Civil servants love it - you get to monitor people all the time as they travel around, and control their behaviour. The consultants that make these road schemes so exorbitantly expensive in the first place love it as they will make a fortune implementing the tolling, and take a large part of the revenue. But really, this region already makes a massive net contribution to the exchequer, so to single it out for additional road charges after fuel duty, car tax and parking charges when nowhere else in the country has a toll of this type, particularly for a desperately over-capacity strategic route was completely outrageous in the first place. 

How much did it cost them to look at tolling? How much damage has been done to the local economy not upgrading the road already? How much damage is being done by the Government constantly coming up with these harebrained schemes? If they want to maximise the benefit to the country from the Cambridge sub-region, they should be making it easier to do business here, by investing in all types of transport: roads, public transport and cycling - if they need to pay for it, engineer down the scandalous £1,5000,000,000 estimated cost of the A14 upgrade.

Singling this region out for special new taxes is a great way to kill the golden goose. Now any bets on how long it will be before congestion charging/demand management/tolls appears on the local agenda again, coupled with the usual carrot of more investment and nonsense about never being able to get transport investment again without the stick - all politicians in the region need to tell the civil servants in no uncertain terms where to stick it and shelve these plans permanently.

Ken's Tax Affairs

After some really unpleasant campaigning in the London mayoral elections, the main contenders have published details of their tax affairs. Boris's tax affairs are pretty straight forward - he earned a relatively large amount of money, all of his income was subject to income tax, resulting in what is an outrageously high marginal tax rate.

Ken Livingstone's declarations on the other hand show that his tax affairs appear to be a model of tax avoidance. In summary, he earns his income through a limited company (Silveta ltd - which appears to be mostly 'Ken Livingstone the company'), and then 'Ken Livingston the person' earns a small salary and dividends from the company. By doing this, he can reduce his effective tax rates, reduce his national insurance bill, manage the timing of when he pays tax to reduce tax, and can split his income with his partner to further avoid tax. His presentation of this arrangement however is extremely slippery. He claims the figures have been checked by an accountant, but if Ken had asked me for advice on what to publish to support income and effective tax rate, I would advise the following. :

You could publish details of just the personal tax return, which would indicate the tax paid on employment income and dividends on the company.

I would however point out that this misrepresents both Ken's total income and effective tax rate, if, as seems likely from the company's bank account, Ken had retained income within the company, thus a personal tax return only underdeclares income and overstates marginal tax rates when looking at a consolidated view of Ken's income.

So the most transparent approach would be to publish both Ken's personal income tax return, and details of all the income earned by Ken through his company in each period.

But what it looks like Ken has actually done is to publish details of his personal income tax return, then done an add back of a notional amount for the part of the corporation tax relating to the dividends actually paid in the period, in order to make it look like Ken has paid a higher effective tax rate. This is of course completely misleading, as it combines Kens personal income/tax with only part of Ken's income from the company to make the marginal tax rate paid appear higher. Even if an accountant had individually approved the personal tax return and the company tax return, no competent accountant would put their signature to this presentation as it is completely misleading.

Then you have to remember that Ken is the candidate who drones on about what he would like to do to rich tax avoiders, and has falsely accused Boris of not paying income tax on his income, and you have to wonder who in their right mind would vote for such a nasty, cynical, dishonest hypocrite as Ken Livingstone.

But the voters of Bradford West have proved that cynical hypocrisy is no barrier to election for left wingers who are prepared to say and do anything to get elected, but you really would have to hope that when faced with the facts about what Boris says on tax and does on tax, compared to what Ken says on tax and the convoluted arrangements he uses to avoid tax, this is an election that only has one possible result.

No child benefit for higher rate taxpayers - A political car crash in slow motion

Its been a while since the Conservatives announced that families where one parent is a higher rate taxpayer would loose child benefit payments. Since then, despite some signs from David Cameron that the Conservatives were about to row back on the policy, the chancellor and others have indicated it is still the government's intention to stop families with a higher tax paying parent from claiming child benefit.

Watching this unfold is like watching a political car crash in slow motion. There has been every opportunity to turn off the road, and no shortage of warning signs of the trouble ahead, but the politicians journey continues apace towards a catastrophic collision with the brick wall representing the reality of a policy rapidly approaching its intended introduction date that is utterly and inexcusably dreadful.

Its not so much that a Conservative lead government is putting narrow political imperatives to be seen to be kicking high earners above rational policy making - although that is obviously a problem, it is that the policy is so deeply, obviously and in fundamental respects flawed. To be more specific, the policy makes the child benefit claims of one party dependent on the tax status of another, relies on an eligibility test for benefit that can only be carried out some time after the benefit needs to be claimed, has a horribly complex effect on marginal tax rates (including marginal rates in some instances over 100%), and is desperately unfair on families with only one wage earner.

To illustrate the problems better, here is some extracts from an email I wrote to an MP in the Chancellor's treasury team.


"what has been touted as an administratively simple way to generate £1bn in revenue looks actually to be deeply flawed. I'm not particularly interested in a response - certainly not of the political justification type - just hope you can look into the issues raised below and try to avoid a nightmare.

I think there are three intrinsic features of the proposed scheme that will cause problems:

1) The plan will introduce a discontinuity in effective marginal tax rate, including a marginal rate of more than 100% around the threshold.

The size of the impact, potentially £2k or more on post-tax income will make tax planning essential for those near the threshold. At the margins, tax could completely drive economic decisions, such as whether or not to seek a promotion, or to work harder, and act as a strong disincentive to economic activity, which can't be a good thing.

There will need to be many complex anti-avoidance rules around artificially reducing income for those just above the threshold or in the first year of the change, and opportunities for professional advisors to have a field day, at a time when the tax system is crying out for simplification.

The last time something with an effect on marginal tax rates as crazy as this was tried was Labour's anti-avoidance rules around restrictions on pension tax relief for high earners. The system was ludicrously complicated, understood by very few taxpayers, slated as a complete dogs breakfast (e.g. http://www.economist.com/node/15580725), and rapidly reviewed. The child benefit proposals probably affect a much larger group, who are much less able to deal with the financial consequences than those in the £130k+ income bracket.

2) The tax charge on one person could depend on the child benefit claims of another.
This makes anti-evasion and anti-avoidance measures extraordinarily difficult to frame and enforce. Some habitual benefit claimants are already adept at disguising from the authorities when they are in a relationship or living with someone who actually earns some money if it affects their benefit. I thought the party was trying to move away from this type of nonsense, not introducing the regime to an entirely new part of the population.

For example:
One assumes where parents live apart/are no longer in a relationship - the higher earner cannot possibly have to repay child benefit, as they won't necessarily even know if it is being claimed.

This will leave a whole range of opportunities for some people to avoid the charge. If parents separate during the year - will subsequent child benefit claims be clawed back? How will the authorities determine who is in a relationship (if they aren't married)? What if a family lives together, but owns two homes - with one parent registered at each - how does the government intend to police when repayment of child benefit is required in this instance, or will it just be an honesty box?

Why is the party increasing the 'couple penalty', rather than reducing it?

3) The test for the trigger can only be performed at the end of the tax year, at which point tax is assessed on the benefit claims during the period, so it will be unclear what the tax effect of an action might be until some time afterwards.
This increases the burden of tax planning, and could result in some nasty cashflow problems around tax return time for people with already stretched financial resources. There are two problems scenarios, failing to claim child benefit then suddenly losing income, and claiming child benefit and unexpectedly hitting the threshold. How would you respond to the following scenarios created by these plans in a surgery situation:

- I thought I was going to be under the limit, but I forgot about the dividends on a few shares I own. If I had of remembered, I would have asked my employer to pay me less in March(!!!), but that £500 now means the taxman wants to reclaim £2,000 from me for the child benefit claimed by my wife, and I can't find that type of cash - I'm the only earner, my wife stays at home looking after the children.

- My husband was earning £50k a year, but he lost his job just before Christmas. The Chancellor said it was sensible for me not to claim child benefit, so I didn't, even though there will no longer be a higher rate taxpayer this year. Now we are in real hardship, and they won't let me backdate a claim for child benefit.

This makes a nonsense of the Chancellor's claim that higher rate taxpayers shouldn't claim child benefit. At the very least they would be advised to claim the benefit and put it in the bank.

The points above are mostly applicable to people near the margins, but looking at the policy politically, there will be a major hit on all higher tax rate families. Working people, particularly in London and the South East have been absolutely hammered under Labour - they pay higher marginal tax rates, higher stamp duty, and I think the reason why we have a Conservative prime minister is that in constituencies across the south voters like this were fed up with a bloated and ever increasing state, squandering taxpayers money and mortgaging their children with its borrowing, leaving them picking up a grossly disproportionate share of the bill. If you wanted to devise a magic bullet carefully targetted to do maximum damage to Conservative core support, I don't think you could do much better than attacking families with one parent working on the high tax threshold, the other staying at home looking after children."

The email was acknowledged with a response indicating that the points would be considered. But that was in 2010 shortly after the policy was first announced, and still the car moves on towards the brick wall.

As someone who was a public face for the Conservatives in Cambridge, I know several people who have raised concerns about the effect of this proposed policy with me - in an 'apoplectic with rage' kind of way. The response if the policy is actually implemented doesn't bear thinking about for the government.