Hello,

One potential way of tackling the current housing shortage in places like London and the South West is to make it more difficult for home owners to holiday let their properties through sites such as Airbnb or Vrbo. With demand for the ‘staycation’ showing few signs of abating, investor demand for lettable properties is driving up house prices. 

The government’s solutions to the problem include the introduction of a short-term let registration scheme and to make home owners apply for planning permission before letting. As the government itself notes, holiday letting spawns its own ‘ecosystem’ of local services, and therefore any measures will have to balance the needs of local employment with local housing.

Hello,

Happy New Tax Year. It's certainly set to be an exciting one. Manchester is celebrating with the introduction a new tourist tax, set at just £1 per night. It's very good value compared to the cost of parking and substantially cheaper than any of the tourist taxes already in force in many foreign cities.

Hello,

The headline grabber in tax this week was TV broadcaster Gary Lineker's victory in an IR35 appeal, which almost overshadowed the publication of Sir Keir Starmer's tax return data. 

In Gary Lineker & Danielle Bux t/a Gary Lineker Media v HMRC [2023] TC8774, HMRC incorrectly challenged broadcaster Gary Lineker's contract with the BBC and BT. It lost a tax appeal against assessments for £4.9m. The First Tier Tribunal (FTT) found that while partnerships can be subject to IR35, the intermediaries' legislation, those rules did not apply as Mr Lineker had contracted with the Broadcasters personally. 

Sir Keir Starmer published details of his taxable income and gains last week, following the disclosure by the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak of his tax returns. Sir Keir's income and gains are straightforward and we ran them through our software to reconcile back to an exact breakdown of his tax bill.