TroughGate - Is there any good news ?

[Doggy Styles]

Buy a second home in London, and use your allowances to pay the mortgage, furnish it, decorate it and improve it at the taxpayers' expense.

Once that's done, change ('flip') your second residence to your original home and do the same there.

Your London home is now your nominal first home so you can sell it for a profit and avoid capital gains tax, and pocket the profit.

Then start all over again.

MPs made their own rules to be able to do that, at the same time as they were cracking down on tax avoidance for freelance workers and family businesses with IR35 and S660.

[Cyberman]

Not yet, but I'm looking forward to Hazel Blears being investigated for tax evasion. Or, at worst, being found guilty by the court of public opinion of not paying "her fair share".

Do you really think that this will happen since New Lie has politicised the police and civil servants since 1997. I hope she serves a jail term but it won't happen will it. The police only prosecute Tories as previous history has shown with Aitken and Archer.

[Alf W]

The police only prosecute Tories as previous history has shown with Aitken and Archer.

Both of whom got off way too lightly.

[Cyberman]

Both of whom got off way too lightly.

... but New Lie won't get any jail terms, so they did not get off lightly at all when compared to this sleazy lot.

[dang65]

So, out of interest, what are the rules for normal people? If I owned a seaside cottage which I'd renovated as a holiday home and classed as my second home, and then I decided to sell it, could I suddenly declare that as my main residence and not pay CGT on it, and then decide to move into my house in town (which had become my "second home") and make that my main residence instead?

Or are normal people not allowed to change, ever?

[Alf W]

Aitken and Archer were both done for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

All anyone has done here is use 'the system' to their advantage.

[Moscow Mule]

So, out of interest, what are the rules for normal people? If I owned a seaside cottage which I'd renovated as a holiday home and classed as my second home, and then I decided to sell it, could I suddenly declare that as my main residence and not pay CGT on it, and then decide to move into my house in town (which had become my "second home") and make that my main residence instead?

Or are normal people not allowed to change, ever?

You have to have lived there at some point and the rules are complicated...

http://www.taxationweb.co.uk/forum/p...od-t17870.html

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cgt/property/sell-own-home.htm

[dang65]

You have to have lived there at some point and the rules are complicated...

http://www.taxationweb.co.uk/forum/p...od-t17870.html

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cgt/property/sell-own-home.htm

Well, from a quick scan through those links, it doesn't look like the rules are any different for anyone else. I realise the fuss is more about having renovation work done using tax payers' money and then selling for profit, but the issue with first and second homes doesn't seem like a big deal at all if everyone else can do it anyway.

[Moscow Mule]

Well, from a quick scan through those links, it doesn't look like the rules are any different for anyone else. I realise the fuss is more about having renovation work done using tax payers' money and then selling for profit, but the issue with first and second homes doesn't seem like a big deal at all if everyone else can do it anyway.

The trouble I have is that if they've designated "flat 1" as their primary residence to HMRC and at the same time have designated "flat 1" as a "second home" for the purposes of claimable expenses.

It's immoral.

[TykeMerc]

Well, from a quick scan through those links, it doesn't look like the rules are any different for anyone else. I realise the fuss is more about having renovation work done using tax payers' money and then selling for profit, but the issue with first and second homes doesn't seem like a big deal at all if everyone else can do it anyway.

That's a primary issue for me, they get tax free allowances paid by the public purse to pay for things that HMRC would prosecute us for as criminal tax evasion.
We can't even offset the costs against tax let alone get the tax man to pay for the whole lot and to add insult to injury they keep the benefits and sell on at an untaxed profit.

Quite frankly much of what I've seen revealed is nothing short of fraud and the only reason they can get away with it is because the arrogant buggers set the rules for their own benefit.