# Allowable Expenses - 3 bed investment property



## Banquo (21 Nov 2021)

Hi,
I recently bought a 3 bed house as an investment (mortgage payment 2000 per month). I had intended to rent it room by room and had someone take 1 room @500 almost immediately but due to unforseen circumstances they moved out after 6 weeks. I've now decided to let it out as a  whole house. I was checking on revenue.ie regarding allowable expenses and I'm concerned that I will not be able to use the mortgage payments to date as allowable expenses. The language of concern is

Expenses not allowed include "expenses on premises rented out on an uneconomic basis, where it is not possible to make a profit from the rent received".

Anyone any thoughts?


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## jpd (21 Nov 2021)

Only the interest portion of mortgage repayments is allowable, not the full amount


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## Banquo (22 Nov 2021)

jpd said:


> Only the interest portion of mortgage repayments is allowable, not the full amount


Yes thats correct. But my question is different. Preletting expenses are not allowed. The first let of the house was 1 bedroom for a short time. Does this now  trigger the qualification of letting expenses ??? Or does the fact that it could be deemed an uneconomic letting disqualify it? Per the language I quoted above


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## elcato (22 Nov 2021)

Revenue would not flag this as it's only 500 euro and even then you have a perfectly plausable explanation should you be audited.


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## Banquo (24 Nov 2021)

elcato said:


> Revenue would not flag this as it's only 500 euro and even then you have a perfectly plausable explanation should you be audited.


Thanks for your rpeky. so if I can summarize. The initial letting short as it was has triggered from tax perspective that the property expenses are allowable and size of rent collected so far would not fall foul of the economic rent requirement.


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## elcato (25 Nov 2021)

Banquo said:


> the property expenses are allowable


Within reason and within the month of letting available. You can't let it sit there for a year and then claim full years interest relief or updating carpets etc.


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## rum and black (25 Nov 2021)

Do people claim expenses for  travelling to and from a property for repairs  or while vetting people for new lets. Any thoughts


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## Thirsty (25 Nov 2021)

rum and black said:


> Do people claim expenses for  travelling to and from a property for repairs  or while vetting people for new lets. Any thoughts


No to travel expenses or your own labour.  You can claim letting agency fees or advertising.


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## rum and black (30 Nov 2021)

Thirsty said:


> No to travel expenses or your own labour.  You can claim letting agency fees or advertising.


 Thanks . I knew you couldn't claim your own labour but heard a few saying you could for travel expenses.


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## murphaph1 (1 Dec 2021)

Seems unfair if you cannot claim reasonable mileage to inspect property, handle handovers etc. You can in Germany (where your own labour is also not allowable). It's a real expense you have to incur as a landlord.


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## Baby boomer (1 Dec 2021)

Add that to a long list of other unfair tax provisions on landlords.  
- non deductibility of LPT 
- non deductibility of NPPR
- non deductibility of some interest (now repealed)
- inability to make pension contributions from rental income.


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## jpd (1 Dec 2021)

You can make pension contributions from rental income, but you cannot claim tax relief on contributions from unearned income


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## RetirementPlan (2 Dec 2021)

murphaph1 said:


> Seems unfair if you cannot claim reasonable mileage to inspect property, handle handovers etc. You can in Germany (where your own labour is also not allowable). It's a real expense you have to incur as a landlord.


You know what would happen if it were allowed, right?


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## Introuble83 (2 Dec 2021)

If a rental property is being sold can you deduct the solicitor fees and estate agent fees on a tax return?


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## Baby boomer (2 Dec 2021)

RetirementPlan said:


> You know what would happen if it were allowed, right?


Sure.  Landlords would be on a par with any other self-employed taxpayer.  Problem?


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## murphaph1 (4 Dec 2021)

It would be easy enough for Revenue to build an algorithm into their systems to compare the number of properties rented with the home address of the landlord and the amount of mileage being claimed. Anything more than say 2 visits to the property a year might cause a flag to be raised to look at the return more closely (still using automation). If there is no higher than usual maintenance compared to previous years and no new RTB registration (could easily add that as a separate field) then maybe something is up and the return should be checked by a human or the taxpayer requested to explain the visits to the property. Inspecting the property more than say once or twice a year could even be excluded in the legislation (at least for residential lettings).


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## cremeegg (4 Dec 2021)

Introuble83 said:


> If a rental property is being sold can you deduct the solicitor fees and estate agent fees on a tax return?


Yes, these are allowable expenses for capital gains tax, not income tax.


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## RetirementPlan (7 Dec 2021)

Baby boomer said:


> Sure.  Landlords would be on a par with any other self-employed taxpayer.  Problem?


The problem would be that many landlords would come up with urgent reasons for regular monthly visits to their properties on the other side of the country, and any synchronicity with gigs, sports events, holidays at those locations would be entirely coincidental, so taxpayers would end up subsidising such travel. It would be extremely difficult to manage and validate such travel.


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## murphaph1 (7 Dec 2021)

See my post above. I can claim mileage on my German rental property and I don't put in any fake trips. It would be easy enough to filter out suspicious mileage entries for a closer look. With Eircodes it should be trivial these days.


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## murphaph1 (7 Dec 2021)

There are lots of businesses where tax evasion is much more difficult to detect and nobody bats an eyelid. Landlords are unfairly demonised by government, Revenue and the media. On Newstalk right know for example.


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## RetirementPlan (7 Dec 2021)

murphaph1 said:


> There are lots of businesses where tax evasion is much more difficult to detect and nobody bats an eyelid. Landlords are unfairly demonised by government, Revenue and the media. On Newstalk right know for example.


Which business have tax evasion that is much more difficult to detect?


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## murphaph1 (7 Dec 2021)

General practice medicine for a start. Basically anything where you pay for someone's time is exceptionally difficult to police. Yet landlords where the property is kind of difficult to hide, as is the price as the tenants are easily identified and questioned, are treated out of the box as tax cheats.


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## Baby boomer (7 Dec 2021)

RetirementPlan said:


> The problem would be that many landlords would come up with urgent reasons for regular monthly visits to their properties on the other side of the country, and any synchronicity with gigs, sports events, holidays at those locations would be entirely coincidental, so taxpayers would end up subsidising such travel. It would be extremely difficult to manage and validate such travel.


The RTB recommend landlord inspections at three monthly intervals.  That seems reasonable to me and it's only fair that it should be an allowable expense.  If the landlord wants to take in a football match or a gig enroute, is that really a problem?  The exact same issue arises with anybody who legitimately travels in the course of their employment or profession.  (Including tax inspectors doing field work!)


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## murphaph1 (7 Dec 2021)

Most landlords probably live fairly close to their rentals because who wants to be travelling to the other side of the country to fix a leaking tap etc.


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## Baby boomer (7 Dec 2021)

murphaph1 said:


> Most landlords probably live fairly close to their rentals because who wants to be travelling to the other side of the country to fix a leaking tap etc.


Probably true, but then again lots of "accidental" landlords might be letting out the former family home having moved for job or other reasons.  Or might inherit a property at the other end of the country that they want to let out.  Either way, be the journeys long or short, they should be allowable as legitimate costs of being a landlord.


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## murphaph1 (7 Dec 2021)

Baby boomer said:


> Probably true, but then again lots of "accidental" landlords might be letting out the former family home having moved for job or other reasons.  Or might inherit a property at the other end of the country that they want to let out.  Either way, be the journeys long or short, they should be allowable as legitimate costs of being a landlord.


Absolutely, it's just that the amount of "going to a gig at the taxpayers' expense (which of course it isn't)" trips would actually be low enough to look at closely if they seem to happen more often than other landlords. The data could be entered quite specifically for each property and ROS would know how far the properties are from the landlord's home address and so on.

Believe me, there are already far more sophisticated fraud algorithms in operation in banks, Amazon etc.


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## RetirementPlan (7 Dec 2021)

murphaph1 said:


> General practice medicine for a start. Basically anything where you pay for someone's time is exceptionally difficult to police. Yet landlords where the property is kind of difficult to hide, as is the price as the tenants are easily identified and questioned, are treated out of the box as tax cheats.


Not sure that things are quite as open for GPs as you might thing - published opening hours, published charges, very easy for Revenue to compare against other GPs in similar areas, very, very easy for Revenue to audit in detail if they chose to do so.



Baby boomer said:


> The RTB recommend landlord inspections at three monthly intervals.  That seems reasonable to me and it's only fair that it should be an allowable expense.  If the landlord wants to take in a football match or a gig enroute, is that really a problem?  The exact same issue arises with anybody who legitimately travels in the course of their employment or profession.  (Including tax inspectors doing field work!)



The difference with landlords is that the requirement to visit could be done on a fairly arbitrary basis, which wouldn't really apply to tax inspectors or most other people who travel for business. To be honest, I wouldn't have a huge problem with something limited, like the quarterly inspections that you mention. The idea of leaving it wide open to landlord discretion to decide on the need to visit would worry me a bit.


murphaph1 said:


> Absolutely, it's just that the amount of "going to a gig at the taxpayers' expense (which of course it isn't)" trips would actually be low enough to look at closely if they seem to happen more often than other landlords. The data could be entered quite specifically for each property and ROS would know how far the properties are from the landlord's home address and so on.
> 
> Believe me, there are already far more sophisticated fraud algorithms in operation in banks, Amazon etc.



While that probably could be done in ROS, there's a value for money question as to the work and effort required to allow that kind of analysis would pay off in terms of the tax numbers involved. AFAIK, ROS doesn't track particular details of individual properties, it doesn't track how much you spend on plumbing or how much on smoke alarms - it just lets you put in details of the business profit resulting, and requires you to have the relevant details available for audit as required. So getting ROS to capture this level of detail around trips to individual properties would be a bit of a departure, and would incur significant costs in itself.


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## murphaph1 (7 Dec 2021)

I don't think so. ROS is modified regularly enough. I think Revenue have in house software developers maintaining it so adding a few fields in the form and some new tables in the database would be trivial. They wouldn't even necessarily _need_ to implement the fraud detection algorithms to discourage most would be tax cheats. The mere fact of asking for detailed information for each property let would scare most people into not declaring fake inspections. I would also be in favour of a hard limit of tax deductible visits to each property, perhaps no more than the RTB suggests. Something is badly wrong if a landlord needs to visit his property more often than once a quarter anyway.

We'll agree to disagree about GP's and how easy or otherwise it is for them to hide income. Some GP's take their time with you, some want you in and out in 5 minutes. I doubt a comparison between GP's is _remotely_ easy to be honest. You say a GP can be audited, but sure so can a landlord. If you think it would be hard to compare landlords but it's easy to compare GP's I really can't agree with that sentiment.

I'm not picking on GP's by the way. The same goes for any service where you pay for knowledge or labour. From gardeners to GPs. It's just the way it is. I just don't get why landlords are _assumed_ to be tax cheats by Revenue (see treatment of non-resident landlords and how tenants are expected to withhold tax at 20% and mad stuff like that). They have an asset that is impossible to hide. Their tenant's have leases that prove the rent paid. They are extremely easy to audit.


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## RetirementPlan (14 Dec 2021)

murphaph1 said:


> I don't think so. ROS is modified regularly enough. I think Revenue have in house software developers maintaining it so adding a few fields in the form and some new tables in the database would be trivial. They wouldn't even necessarily _need_ to implement the fraud detection algorithms to discourage most would be tax cheats. The mere fact of asking for detailed information for each property let would scare most people into not declaring fake inspections. I would also be in favour of a hard limit of tax deductible visits to each property, perhaps no more than the RTB suggests. Something is badly wrong if a landlord needs to visit his property more often than once a quarter anyway.
> .



Yes, ROS is modified regularly. That doesn't make this a good candidate for modification. You can be sure they have a long list of demands for priority modifications, without this issue. The question isn't about whether ROS can capture a few extra fields. The question is whether Revenue want to make a fundamental change to the approach to taxation of rental properties, capturing information at a totally different level of detaul to the present day. There's also the data minimisation principle of GDPR, which would make it difficult or impossible for Revenue to ask for additional information just to scare people off.


murphaph1 said:


> We'll agree to disagree about GP's and how easy or otherwise it is for them to hide income. Some GP's take their time with you, some want you in and out in 5 minutes. I doubt a comparison between GP's is _remotely_ easy to be honest. You say a GP can be audited, but sure so can a landlord. If you think it would be hard to compare landlords but it's easy to compare GP's I really can't agree with that sentiment.


You'd be surprised at the sophisticated tools available to Revenue and the decades of experience there that enable them to do cross-industry comparisons like this and identify the outliers for further attention.



murphaph1 said:


> I'm not picking on GP's by the way. The same goes for any service where you pay for knowledge or labour. From gardeners to GPs. It's just the way it is. I just don't get why landlords are _assumed_ to be tax cheats by Revenue (see treatment of non-resident landlords and how tenants are expected to withhold tax at 20% and mad stuff like that). They have an asset that is impossible to hide. Their tenant's have leases that prove the rent paid. They are extremely easy to audit.



You're aware of the long tradition of tax evasion in the residential rental sector, right?


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## Baby boomer (14 Dec 2021)

RetirementPlan said:


> You'd be surprised at the sophisticated tools available to Revenue and the decades of experience there that enable them to do cross-industry comparisons like this and identify the outliers for further attention.


Exactly.  A landlord claiming excessive expenses would stick out like a sore thumb!



RetirementPlan said:


> You're aware of the long tradition of tax evasion in the residential rental sector, right?


Equally applicable to many other sectors, construction, licenced trade, retail, hospitality, doctors etc.  Point is that most of those sectors have gradually (or suddenly in some cases) been brought into compliance. 

It is much harder for landlords (and others) to evade taxes now.  Most tenancies are RTB registered now and the data is shared with Revenue. And tenants ability to claim tax relief on rent paid adds a further level of visibility to Revenue.  Likewise, LPT.   And the days of offshore accounts with addresses like 1 Main Street, London are long gone.  You can't put cash into a bank account and expect it to remain hidden from Revenue.  So, while it might once have been an issue, tax evasion by landlords is not a huge risk right now. 

There is no basis for treating landlords differently to other businesses.  Travel is a legitimate expense, necessarily incurred, and it it quite unjust that it isn't allowable when calculating taxable income.


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## Gordon Gekko (14 Dec 2021)

There’s a distinction between active and passive income though.

Income from a trade or profession is not the same as a passive income stream from an investment.


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## murphaph1 (14 Dec 2021)

Rental income isn't passive in the sense of dividends from shares etc. though. There is real work involved for most of us.


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## Baby boomer (14 Dec 2021)

murphaph1 said:


> Rental income isn't passive in the sense of dividends from shares etc. though. There is real work involved for most of us.


Exactly.  That's the point.  

And there's also the issue of residential landlords being treated less favourably than landlords of commercial property.


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## Micks'r (14 Dec 2021)

Baby boomer said:


> And there's also the issue of residential landlords being treated less favourably than landlords of commercial property.


How so?


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## Baby boomer (14 Dec 2021)

Micks'r said:


> How so?


Commercial property landlords were never subjected to the 75% limit on allowable interest payments.  

There's a second but memory escapes me at the moment.


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## Gordon Gekko (14 Dec 2021)

murphaph1 said:


> Rental income isn't passive in the sense of dividends from shares etc. though. There is real work involved for most of us.


I’ve owned investment properties for a long time and there’s very little work involved relative to an active trade or profession.

Rental income is passive in nature.


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## murphaph1 (14 Dec 2021)

There's work involved though, especially if you are "handy" and don't need to call a tradesman for every little thing. If something needs attention and I have to drive there to tend to it, it's an expense that comes straight out of the rent. The mileage should be deductable. It is in Germany.

The very fact the expense is incurred shows that the income is not (entirely) passive. If it was I could tell my tenants not to call me because Revenue says the money should just flow into my account without me lifting a finger.


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## Gordon Gekko (14 Dec 2021)

murphaph1 said:


> There's work involved though, especially if you are "handy" and don't need to call a tradesman for every little thing. If something needs attention and I have to drive there to tend to it, it's an expense that comes straight out of the rent. The mileage should be deductable. It is in Germany.
> 
> The very fact the expense is incurred shows that the income is not (entirely) passive. If it was I could tell my tenants not to call me because Revenue says the money should just flow into my account without me lifting a finger.


I disagree.

I do my own tax return. I could pay someone €1,000 to do it. I don’t think that I should be able to charge for my time.

Management charges aren’t deductible for an investment portfolio. I can’t deduct the cost of my taxi if I go to meet my investment manager.

I’m very much pro the taxpayer but I think it would be preposterous to allow landlords to deduct for their own time or mileage.

Whether they do it in Germany or not is irrelevant.


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## Baby boomer (14 Dec 2021)

Gordon Gekko said:


> I disagree.
> 
> I do my own tax return. I could pay someone €1,000 to do it. I don’t think that I should be able to charge for my time.


I'd agree with that.  One's own labour is not a tax deductible expense for any business.



Gordon Gekko said:


> Management charges aren’t deductible for an investment portfolio. I can’t deduct the cost of my taxi if I go to meet my investment manager.


Being a landlord is far more active than having an investment portfolio!



Gordon Gekko said:


> I’m very much pro the taxpayer but I think it would be preposterous to allow landlords to deduct for their own time or mileage.


Time, yes, I'd agree.  Mileage, though, is a perfectly legitimate expense.  It is an absolute necessity to visit the rental property to show prospective tenants, carry out inspections and do (or arrange for) repairs.  And, of course, if you outsource this to a letting agent, you can deduct their fees in full.  Including any travel charges embedded or separately specified in their bill.




Gordon Gekko said:


> Whether they do it in Germany or not is irrelevant.


True-ish, insofar as it's not relevant to establishing the position under Irish tax law.  But it is a guide to how things are done elsewhere and, at the very least, suggests that the position in Ireland is unduly onerous.  Also noteworthy is that the UK allows landlords to deduct travel expenses including mileage.


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## Gordon Gekko (15 Dec 2021)

Fine if people choose to do things themselves, but don’t expect the State to pay you for the privilege!


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## NoRegretsCoyote (15 Dec 2021)

murphaph1 said:


> It would be easy enough to filter out suspicious mileage entries for a closer look.


I don't think so.

Maybe 150k rental income returns every year with (say) three mileage claims each at civil service rates. This is tens of millions of euros in deductions. It is very difficult to build a system to flag anomalies given that there actually will be some landlords in Donegal with properties in Kerry, and others with genuine reasons to make multiple inspections.

The tax regime for landlords is already too complicated. I would just have a flat tax on all rental income (in the region of 20% to 30%) with no deductions for anything whatsoever. Very simple to calculate. Very simple to enforce.



Baby boomer said:


> Being a landlord is far more active than having an investment portfolio!



Being a landlord of an apartment and using a management agent is not very demanding on one's time or effort. Calculating your tax liability is quite straightforward.

An investment portofolio of dividend-paying stocks, ETFs, and bonds is less time consuming but try calculating your tax liability on your own!


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## Baby boomer (15 Dec 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> Being a landlord of an apartment and using a management agent is not very demanding on one's time or effort.


Isn't that precisely the point?   If your managing agent does everything you won't have any mileage expenses!  But if you do it yourself, you will.  

We have a self- assessment tax system with a presumption of taxpayer honesty. (According to the Revenue's Taxpayer's Charter.)  Difficulty in verifying mileage expenses is no excuse for not allowing them.  Particularly as it's no more difficult for landlords than for any other self-employed trade or profession - probably a lot easier than most actually.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (15 Dec 2021)

Baby boomer said:


> Isn't that precisely the point? If your managing agent does everything you won't have any mileage expenses! But if you do it yourself, you will.


If you use a trading platform to buy and sell shares you have expenses which aren't tax deductible!

Everything type of investment has some cost.

People are having detailed arguments over what should and shouldn't be tax deductible from rental income. The whole regime is already over-complicated and should be simplified.


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## Gordon Gekko (15 Dec 2021)

Baby boomer said:


> Isn't that precisely the point?   If your managing agent does everything you won't have any mileage expenses!  But if you do it yourself, you will.
> 
> We have a self- assessment tax system with a presumption of taxpayer honesty. (According to the Revenue's Taxpayer's Charter.)  Difficulty in verifying mileage expenses is no excuse for not allowing them.  Particularly as it's no more difficult for landlords than for any other self-employed trade or profession - probably a lot easier than most actually.


If you fix the washing machine yourself, would you expect to pocket a callout fee (or at least write it off against tax)?

I’m as pro the taxpayer as the next person, but this is laughable stuff.


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## Gordon Gekko (15 Dec 2021)

It costs money to get an advisor to submit your tax return. Should taxpayers get a deemed write-off for doing it themselves?


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## Baby boomer (15 Dec 2021)

Gordon Gekko said:


> If you fix the washing machine yourself, would you expect to pocket a callout fee (or at least write it off against tax)?
> 
> I’m as pro the taxpayer as the next person, but this is laughable stuff.


Apples and oranges.  If I fix the washing machine in a BTL I can write off materials or spare parts used.  I can't (and wouldn't expect to, and never claimed I should) write off my labour or callout fee.  It's a circular transaction anyway.  If I got to write off my "callout fee" against rental income, I'd have to declare it as income from my incidental trade of fixing washing machines!  

But mileage is different.  Why should travel to visit a client be any different than travel to visit a tenant?  It's a legitimate expense, wholly, exclusively and even necessarily incurred.


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## Gordon Gekko (15 Dec 2021)

Baby boomer said:


> Apples and oranges.  If I fix the washing machine in a BTL I can write off materials or spare parts used.  I can't (and wouldn't expect to, and never claimed I should) write off my labour or callout fee.  It's a circular transaction anyway.  If I got to write off my "callout fee" against rental income, I'd have to declare it as income from my incidental trade of fixing washing machines!
> 
> But mileage is different.  Why should travel to visit a client be any different than travel to visit a tenant?  It's a legitimate expense, wholly, exclusively and even necessarily incurred.


Because a client is a client of an active business that the person is spending all or most of their working time on.

A landlord receiving passive income from a tenant and choosing to drive a few kilometres with a hammer to stick up some shelves is a world away.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (15 Dec 2021)

Baby boomer said:


> But mileage is different. Why should travel to visit a client be any different than travel to visit a tenant? It's a legitimate expense, wholly, exclusively and even necessarily incurred.


Should you be able to claim mileage for travel to the AGM of a company you are a shareholder of?

The boundary is fuzzy between active and passive income of course. But you have to draw the line somewhere and being a residential landlord is more passive than active. Your equity is doing much more work than you are.


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## Baby boomer (15 Dec 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> Should you be able to claim mileage for travel to the AGM of a company you are a shareholder of?


No.  Unless you're also a director or employee. 



NoRegretsCoyote said:


> The boundary is fuzzy between active and passive income of course. But you have to draw the line somewhere and being a residential landlord is more passive than active.


Debatable.  Tell that to a landlord struggling to get an overholding tenant out.  Passivity won't get you very far.



NoRegretsCoyote said:


> Your equity is doing much more work than you are.


Investing in a REIT shareholding is passive.  Managing one BTL considerably more active.  Managing ten or twenty might be close to a full time job.


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## Baby boomer (15 Dec 2021)

Gordon Gekko said:


> Because a client is a client of an active business that the person is spending all or most of their working time on.


There is absolutely no requirement that the taxpayer should be spending all or most of their working time on their business.  It's possible to have a very passive business with income largely driven by historical but ongoing commission or royalties.  




Gordon Gekko said:


> A landlord receiving passive income from a tenant and choosing to drive a few kilometres with a hammer to stick up some shelves is a world away.


Easy to pick a trivial example.  But you can't avoid the fact that it's necessary to either incur travel costs or pay somebody to do it for you.  Either way, costs legitimately incurred should be deductible.  As they are in the UK, Germany and presumably most normal countries that don't demonize landlords.


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## murphaph1 (15 Dec 2021)

Gordon Gekko said:


> I disagree.
> 
> I do my own tax return. I could pay someone €1,000 to do it. I don’t think that I should be able to charge for my time.
> 
> ...


It's not irrelevant. The German and UK tax codes allow mileage as they are legitimate expenses. Neither code allows you to claim for your own _labour_, which is entirely appropriate, but the cost of _getting_ to the property is a legitimate expense that comes directly out of the rental income. The state isn't paying me in Germany to go and fix the dishwasher in apartment x. The state simply recognises, that I incur a real and legitimate expense in doing so, namely my travel costs. The Irish tax code is the outlier in my (albeit limited) experience.


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## murphaph1 (15 Dec 2021)

Gordon Gekko said:


> Because a client is a client of an active business that the person is spending all or most of their working time on.
> 
> A landlord receiving passive income from a tenant and choosing to drive a few kilometres with a hammer to stick up some shelves is a world away.


Surely the amount of time spent maintaining ones properties would be a function of the number of properties held. If I had (and I don't) 100 units and it was a full time job for me, would you then see it differently? It appears so from your statement above.


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## murphaph1 (15 Dec 2021)

Gordon Gekko said:


> It costs money to get an advisor to submit your tax return. Should taxpayers get a deemed write-off for doing it themselves?


But you didn't actually _incur_ the expense if you did it yourself. You are talking about "claiming for your time" again and nobody is claiming that this should be allowed. The equivalent argument would actually be if you _had_ to drive somewhere to submit your tax return and if that was the case for some reason then that should be deductible expense. Of course it's difficult to argue that you needed to drive somewhere to submit a tax return as even a paper return would generally be posted in. If you have to drive to repair a washing machine, you do incur a legitimate expense.


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