Prime Minister Theresa May doesn’t need to bother building hundreds of thousands of new homes.
She should just give landlords who are sitting on properties that they no longer want a tax incentive to sell them, don’t you think?
That’s what a reader and fellow landlord suggested to me recently and while the idea of the Government giving a tax break to the privileged, multi-property owning class might gross out many people, it actually might make sense.
I mean, there are many landlords who have made shedloads of money out of their rentals, but that means they will have to pay truckloads of capital gains tax (CGT) when they sell.
You might think it only fair that landlords who have seen their investments grow should be heavily taxed and I wouldn’t disagree with you — but that’s not the point.
Rather than pay up to 28 per cent capital gains tax, many landlords are hanging on to their properties so they are not paying any CGT at all.
If the tax were reduced, they might be persuaded to offload those properties, which would release much-needed housing stock for first-time buyers and families.
Source https://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/renting/cutting-taxes-on-buytolets-could-free-up-houses-for-firsttimers-and-families-a118831.html