HMRC Spotlight 63 – a buy to let tax arrangement

Hundreds of buy-to-let (BTL) individual landlords have landed in very hot water with HMRC announcing that a specific ‘hybrid’ limited liability partnership (LLP)-corporate partner structure is a ‘tax scheme’ in Spotlight 63 (tinyurl.com/hmrcspotlight63).

This crystallises a concern that many Taxation readers will have come across in the past few years on potential solutions that their landlord clients have found in the marketplace. These generally promise a fix to the mortgage interest relief issue for those landlords that cannot undertake a ‘normal’ incorporation of their BTL portfolio. The solutions will vary though will involve an LLP in the mix.

This article raises legitimate professional concerns over the Spotlight 63 scheme and aspects of some other provider’s ‘arrangements’ (to distinguish these from the scheme in the spotlight) which have concerned us. It also addresses professional accounting bodies’ members’ ethical duties in...