Angela Rayner faces having to pay tens of thousands of pounds more in stamp duty if tax officials judge she incorrectly paid the lower rate on her Hove flat, tax experts have warned.<\/p>\n
The deputy prime minister could be slapped with an additional tax bill if officials judge she paid too little stamp duty when she bought her \u00a3800,000 property earlier this year, they said.<\/p>\n
Rayner has been under pressure<\/a> to explain more about her property arrangements for several weeks amid accusations that she might have avoided tax by classifying different properties as her main residence.<\/p>\n For council tax purposes, she has classified her house in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, where she is the MP, as her main residence, thereby avoiding a \u00a32,000 bill on her grace-and-favour apartment in London. But she has since put the constituency home into a trust before declaring the flat in Hove, East Sussex<\/a>, as her sole dwelling at the time of purchase.<\/p>\n Experts now say that tax officials could demand the higher rate of stamp duty if they decided Rayner was wrong when she declared the Hove flat as her only residence. If they deemed her south-coast property was an additional dwelling, they could demand she pay the higher stamp duty rate of \u00a370,000, rather than the \u00a330,000 she paid when she bought it.<\/p>\n Sean Randall, a tax adviser who specialises in stamp duty, said: \u201cRayner disposed of the Ashton house into a trust before midnight of the day of completion. But she would be regarded as still owning it if she or her children are a beneficiary under the trust and entitled to occupy the dwelling for life. The key question is whether she or her children are so entitled.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that while Rayner would have declared her Hove flat as her only house, officials at HMRC would have until next spring to challenge that designation. \u201cHMRC has the opportunity, but not the obligation, to check later,\u201d he said. \u201cAn inquiry normally starts eight months after completion.\u201d<\/p>\n Henry Pryor, a property agent, said: \u201cThe test for stamp duty is not whether you own another property, but whether you have an interest in another property, which is your main one.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Rayner did not respond to a request to comment, though her allies insist she has not broken any tax rules and she is not under investigation by the prime minister\u2019s adviser on ministerial standards.<\/p>\n Rayner\u2019s complex property arrangements have attracted criticism from her political opponents, who accuse her of hypocritically minimising her tax liabilities while advocating for higher wealth taxes on others.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Get the day\u2019s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n