Monday 30 September 2013

Landlords beware!


HMRC has announced the latest in their ever- lengthening list of initiatives to get non-compliant taxpayers to confess to their sins!

HMRC estimate that, currently, they are missing out on £500 million of tax, as a result of some 1.5 million landlords failing to declare the income from letting activities.

As in all previous initiatives, there is a “softly-softly” approach for those landlords who come forward and declare tax owed from earlier years.  Tax and interest will still be payable, together with penalties – but less severe penalties than if HMRC get to you before you report to them!  

The message is clear – HMRC believe there is a lot of unreported income from lettings and they are using their intelligence software "Connect"to find the landlords who are failing to report their income. 

If you are a resident of the UK, then all of your rental income, even that arising on foreign holiday properties, must be declared and HMRC have found many a non-compliant landlord merely by trawling the holiday property listings on the internet!

If you are in the position of having unreported letting income (UK or overseas) then contact us to discuss your situation at:                  ppeterson@petersonsims.com             gsims@petersonsims.com