Say "Yes" to George

For some gloriously garbled landlord special pleading, have a look at Say "No" To George, spotted by Thomas Hall.

As Babs says on the Contact page:

I think some of the arguments need to be developed further before significant traffic and inconsistencies need to be checked. For example, in some parts, you say that house prices will drop, and then for first time buyers the argument says that house prices will not drop.

An example of their Doublespeak from the Landlords page:

EVERY OTHER BUSINESS IN THE LAND IS ALLOWED TO OFFSET THEIR TOTAL COSTS AGAINST THEIR INCOME BEFORE BEING TAXED (ON THEIR PROFIT). IF YOU BELIEVE THAT YOUR PROPERTY INVESTMENT IS TO BE TAXED UNFAIRLY THEN JOIN THE PETITION!

So is being a landlord a "business" or is it "investment"? For tax purposes, those are two quite separate concepts:

If it is a "business", then yes, they would get a full deduction for the costs of furniture and interest, but rents would be liable to VAT and net profit liable to Class 4 NIC as well as income tax.

And if it is "investment" then there would be no deduction for any costs whatsoever, the same as dividend and interest income.
---------------------
I left the following comment on their Contact page just now (15.30 pm, 12 Aug). Let's see if they publish it.

I'm old enough to remember the good old days, when landlords were taxed at much higher rates; rents were capped/controlled; there was plenty of social housing as an alternative to private renting. And for good measure, landlords paid higher interest rates than owner-occupiers and owner-occupier mortgages were capped at two or three times income. And we had Domestic Rates (and before that Schedule A taxation on owner-occupiers as well).

The result of all this was that the number of private renting households fell from 90% at the start of the 20th century to less than 10% by 1990 - with an equal and opposite increase in owner-occupation. This increase in owner-occupation levels was always heralded as a Very Good Thing indeed, and nobody mourned the demise of private landlords as a class. The knock-on effect was a more equitable distribution of wealth, a smaller and more stable banking system and a much smoother economic path.

Having been a landlord and a tenant in my life, I can honestly say that landlords serve absolutely no useful purpose whatsoever and provide nothing of value - as evidenced by the fact that a lot of tenants end up buying the home they were renting and absolutely nothing changes. If landlords were actual businesses (like a hair dresser or a car mechanic or a farmer) then we would not be able to just cut them out of the loop. I can't cut my own hair, fix my own car or grow my own food, but I am perfectly capable of calling the plumber, doing a bit of DIY and sorting out the insurance on my own home.

I suspect that you will hotly disagree with this :-)