Let Property Campaign & Self-Assessment - confused?

Let Property Campaign & Self-Assessment -...

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I recently spoke to a new client who told me that her only income is from her job (under PAYE) plus about £10,000 profit each year from an unfurnished buy-to-let.

Although she bought the buy-to-let 6 years ago, she has never registered for self-assessment as she never understood how to deal with tax.

She could I am sure use HMRCs Let Property Campaign to disclose the unpaid tax for the last 6 years.

Should she also at the same time register for self-assessment and - if so - from which tax year should she start submitting self-assessment tax returns?

 
 

Replies (8)

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By David Treitel
26th Mar 2016 17:00

Thanks Basil - as far I know the rental profit is the only undeclared income. Are you saying that for the 2016-17 and future years HMRC would collect any tax due through a coding adjustment?

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By Ruddles
26th Mar 2016 17:38

Could you clarify, Basil

Will HMRC automatically put the client on SA as part of the process? If not, how will the client return the profits in the future?

Do you advise all your clients to have all untaxed income coded out?

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By Wanderer
26th Mar 2016 18:59

Think they only allow LPC for years SA is out of time.

Last one I did, in February, the DO2 form says:-

"You can make a disclosure for all years up to & including 2013-2014".

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By SKCOX
26th Mar 2016 19:28

Wanderer
Agree. I have recently done one of these, and have had to register client for SA going forward. I don't mind this at all, as both LPC and tax code adjustments are blunt instruments. LPC was particularly unable to cope with losses b/f, spare PA and offsets against other income.

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By rhangus.
29th Mar 2016 11:11

LPC Disclosure Forms

These forms are an utter nuisance.

Apart from having income as the wording when they want profit, if you have some profits payable at 40% and 20%, my goodness its like asking for a burger without, at McDonalds as chaos ensues.

Before coming to me my client's DF was returned 3 times and no mention of the fact he put rental income down when it says income and so did I.
Can we have another box for income and one for taxable profit for the next edition of the form?

 

They practically incriminate your client if their declaration goes back beyond say a 6th or 7th year from now, latter years are dealt with via SA, as the penalty increases as apparently my new client should've known about it much sooner, no question. It seems that way as the mellow wording for latter most recent years turns into a more nasty and incriminating phrase, as i say when going back to earlier years. A ticking off by HMRC as you should have known.

Well, "What's good for the goose..."

Wish we can turn the clocks around when HMRC compounds mistakes for a few years over a few of my cases for new clients over 10 years and more.

One where a refund of £250k was incorrectly sitting there as a credit on my new client's SA online account when I first looked. Why is this there I enquired? Why wouldn't it trigger some alarm bells over all these years and maybe someone would enquire into it?

Another was the simple matter of correctly coding a private pension BR, which went on for at least 10 years, clocking up much in ever increasing and frustrating o/s tax due by my client. They tried to correct by writing etc by this bore no fruit.

It was eventually agreed as a [***] up and qualified under some agreement whereby tax written off and fees paid for by HMRC but can we say attempted fraud when they know better than to let this go on for so long?

Are they at HMRC criminal or criminally incompetent?

 

LPC "department" of HMRC are unfortunately on a par with the rest of the HMRC mass mess, whereby imploding an agonisingly slow death.

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Replying to houseboss2:
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By SKCOX
29th Mar 2016 18:35

Basil

fawltybasil2575 wrote:

Whilst appreciating that recent posters have experienced difficulties in the LPC process, I am compelled to say that I have encountered no such problems.  

One does need to fully take account of all aspects of the client/taxpayer's circumstances, including other Income and Allowances, so as to determine the correct tax liability, but such calculations should be prepared in any event, IMHO, for every client.  One also has to calculate the Interest due, but again this should not present a problem.

Basil

I quite agree, but in the case I was referring to it was my holistic approach that caused the problem. My first submission was rejected simply on the grounds that my figure for tax due did not equal 20% of the let property income declared. Hence the need further correspondence explaining the position re unused PA and losses brought forward. All resolved in due course, but with little effort at joined up thinking from HMRC.

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By Wanderer
29th Mar 2016 13:40

Like Basil

I have encountered few problems in dealing under the LPC.

Indeed contrary to rhangus' experiences I have found the LPC staff to be competent & easy to deal with. 

Only thing they have difficulty with is if client has no NI number. A quick phone call to them however can cross that hurdle quite easily. 

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By rhangus.
29th Mar 2016 18:47

LPC staff on a par with the rest of HMRC

LPC staff survey is based on 3 people spoken to where second person corrected badly trained first person and its just that they are dealing with a badly worded form much in need of improvement, which said lady admitted to just before attending her meeting partly on just that issue.

Stemming from a confusing box and any new form may need more boxes and clearly marked.

 

There is also a rather insulting option you must tick when client has to go back several years, when HMRC are more often in the wrong than even all my new clients combined coming to me with a specific problem.

 

My main issue as I thought I clearly said, was regarding the main HMRC staff where they are in possession of bigger mistakes, sometimes going back numerous years. That’s their job, and its often fairly narrow based knowledge yet they fail.

The impression I get is, their hammocks would be kept warm whilst doing their work correctly first time around and also when they at least concede earlier when an obvious point of query is raised, then they'd get back to them sooner, to light that cigar and put the lights back out.

 

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