27^th Mar 2019

An accountancy firm is urging landlords to be careful as the HMRC's Let Property campaign, despite receiving vast media coverage over the last few years, has in effect 'flopped' and because of its failure the HMRC will be targeting the sector in earnest.

The firm used a Freedom of Interest request to find out that the Let Property campaign has so far received only 3% of the anticipated number of disclosures from landlords.

In 2013 under the Conservative Lib Dem coalition-led government the Let Property campaign was launched. It had been estimated that as many as 1.5 million landlords had failed to pay or had underpaid £500m in tax in the 2009 - 2010 tax year.

Since the campaign was launched only 35,099 people have made disclosures to the HMRC, approximately 2.3% of the targeted base.

The firm says the HMRC has a considerable amount of work to do and will almost certainly increase pressure on landlords to 'own up'.

James Hender of the accountancy firm, said: “From the outset, the Let Property Campaign was always looking much more widely than just traditional landlords. It also targets those who may have become accidental landlords – such as those with holiday lets or multiple occupations.

“The tax system is becoming more complex and the burden is shifting further towards the taxpayer: this inevitably means individual mistakes and misunderstanding can happen. Looking at the data from the FOI, of the large number of tax payers who stated that they had either failed to notify HMRC of their original liabilities or hadn’t taken reasonable care, many would likely have been unaware that they owed anything at all."

He continued: “According to HMRC’s estimates there are clearly many more landlords who have additional tax to pay, but have yet to come forward. If this is the case, then these people would be well advised to contact the taxman sooner rather than later.

“HMRC have been tightening the net on non-compliance and there are increasingly few opportunities for taxpayers to mitigate the risk of an investigation. This campaign is one of the few that remains open but, with the Common Reporting Standard online and the Failure to Correct penalty system in place (both of which will affect owners of properties overseas) it is likely to remain that way for only so long.”



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