Generation Rent wants landlords to pay NI contributions 

In its latest series of demands to the government, activist group Generation Rent says landlords should pay National Insurance contributions “to restore some balance with workers”.

In a lengthy statement to Chancellor Rachel Reeves ahead of this afternoon’s Budget the group says: “Landlords who don’t have a mortgage pay a lower tax rate on their rental profits than someone in the same tax bracket who only has an income from their job. This is because wages are subject to National Insurance but rental profits are not. 

“Requiring landlords to pay NI contributions would restore some balance with workers – though if this is announced, expect grumbling from landlords with mortgages, who have had some tax relief withdrawn on their interest payments.

“Profits from the sale of assets should also be taxed at at least the same rate as income from work. Property, in particular, increases in value as a result of changes in the local area that have nothing to do with effort on the owner’s part. There is no reason for this type of asset to be taxed more generously than work, so the capital gains tax rate on property should increase to at least match income tax rates.

“Landlords who don’t have a mortgage pay a lower tax rate on their rental profits than someone in the same tax bracket who only has an income from their job. This is because wages are subject to National Insurance but rental profits are not. Requiring landlords to pay NI contributions would restore some balance with workers – though if this is announced, expect grumbling from landlords with mortgages, who have had some tax relief withdrawn on their interest payments.”

Generation Rent has a link with Labour given that its chief executive, Ben Twomey, is a former Labour candidate – however, it is uncertain whether the Chancellor will follow the group’s policies as closely as the housing department has since the party came to power. 

The five other demands are:

• Energy improvement grants to come to tenants not landlords, because such grants “currently flow to landlords, who find it very easy to raise the rent to reflect improved quality (and cancel out the bill savings), or sell their newly more valuable property – to the detriment of the tenant who qualified for the grant in the first place.”

• Replace council tax and stamp duty with an annual property tax based on a proportion of the property’s value, requiring re-assessments of the nation’s house values by the Valuation Office Agency; 

• Hammer more second homes with higher council tax: It says: “Councils in Wales now have greater powers to charge additional council tax on second homes, and holiday lets face stricter criteria than in England so the sector may well shrink further. The government should consider giving English councils more powers to set council tax on second homes. The government should at the very least set out benchmarks of success for the current policy and measure changes in the number of holiday homes at local level to guide future policy decisions”;

• Build “genuinely affordable” homes: Generation Rent takes the existing target set by Shelter of the UK requiring 90,000 per year.and accuses Rachel Reeves of providing funding only for some 5,000; 

• It wants local housing allowance (which actually went up only six months ago) to be uprated again next April. The group says this would “take the pressure off renters, and prevent more evictions and homelessness. Ideally the rates would track rents on new tenancies, which tend to be higher than average rents across the private rented sector.” 

This article is taken from Landlord Today