How property rental income is taxed

HMRC states that people who receive rent or income from land and property in the UK are required to complete a tax return. Therefore the first thing you would need to do is to inform HMRC that you are receiving property income by 5 October following the end of the tax year in which you received the income. The UK tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April the following year. Therefore, if you rented out your property on 1 March 2011, you would need to inform HMRC by 5 October 2011. If you do not do this you may be charged a penalty.

You should inform HMRC of your property income no matter whether you are making a profit or a loss from the property.   But you pay tax only on your net rental profits – that is, your rental income, less the allowable expenses (deductions) of letting.  So if you have no profit, you will have no tax to pay.

After informing HMRC, HMRC will send you a tax return to complete.

UK property income is entered on the UK property pages of the self assessment tax return.

On your tax return you enter the income and the expenses. If your rental income is higher than your rental expenses, you are only taxed on this amount which is your profit. If your rental expenses exceed your income, you have made a loss. If this happens you should take advice as this is a complicated area.

If you send in your tax return to HMRC on-line, your tax bill will be calculated automatically. Any profit from property is added to your other income of the tax year. If you are a basic rate taxpayer, you will pay 20% income tax on your rental profits. National Insurance is not paid on rental profits. The tax due is collected under self-assessment – usually a tax bill due by 31 January each year.

Taxing rental income though your PAYE code

There is an alternative to filling in a tax return each year and paying tax under self-assessment. If you are an employee or a pensioner and your income is taxed under PAYE, you may be able to pay the tax due on the rent through you employment or pension.

If the tax due on the rental income is less than £2,000 a year, you can ask HMRC to collect any tax due through your PAYE code. You would need to send the tax office a statement of your rental income and expenses each year. HMRC would then change your PAYE tax code to collect the additional tax from your employment or pension.

The is more information about this on the HMRC website at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/non-paye-income.htm