Making It Up As They Go Along

In SDLT it seems that ministers don't bother with the fig-leaf of regulation any more and their officials in HMRC just make up it up as they go along. To be fair to these officials the relevant rules are so complex and obscure that they may feel they have little choice in the matter. Nevertheless it was they who created these weird rules.

This legislative obscurity causes enormous uncertainty in straightforward commercial property transactions and can lead to absurd over-taxation. Take for example the SDLT rules relating to property partnerships. Let's use a straightforward joint venture where one partner (A) contributes land into a partnership and the...