02 Mar HMRC, Rental income and non-disclosure, Declare to them before they find you!

We deal with a lot of accountants and I’ve been talking about my Buy To Let clients and some who may not declare their rental income because they’re not aware that they should be, so for example if somebody is receiving £600 per month rent and their mortgage is £550 they might think they’re not making much profit, under the new rules (full enforcement on 1st April 2020) you have to declare all of your rental income and you can’t necessarily take anything off so if you’ve got £12,000 a year rental income then that has to be added on to your self-assessment and declared to HMRC and you have to be careful of these types of  incomes because it could push you into higher rate tax . Sometimes we have
accidental landlords (people that have inherited property or kept a property and moved in with a partner) and with HMRC there is something called the Let Property Campaign which is the disclosure process specifically for property related income that hasn’t been disclosed in the past.  This allows you to voluntarily declare past income and then interest and penalties are dealt with a lot more favorably as you have come forward to HMRC rather than them chasing you or finding out afterwards. There is also the worldwide disclosure facility if you’re unsure about income you should be declaring from property abroad even if you don’t particularly rent it out and you receive interest on a foreign bank account that also has to be declared. Please contact us and we can put you in touch with one of our many accountants that specialize in property. At the end of the day ignorance is not an excuse with HMRC!  https://youtu.be/6YMnBPPU5-c