Can Stamp Duty Land Tax Be Avoided? - By: Reynaldo Marshall

Tax planning is minimizing the required taxes owed to the Government by using the provisions of the taxation law to your advantage. This is entirely legal. However tax avoidance is to suppress your actual income or tax dues and this is usually a criminal offence. Stamp Duty Mitigation or Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) planning is definitely an entirely legal method of tax planning, which uses the provisions in the UK tax law, to lower the level of Stamp Duty Land Tax to be paid.

If you had purchased a property recently, you have to be wondering why your Solicitor didn't explain to you to implement this legal way to minimize the Stamp Duty Land Tax? The facts are it does take Tax planning to a high degree and specialized knowledge is necessary for Stamp Duty Mitigation. You need an authority in this field and it will be beyond the competence of your ordinary conveyancing lawyer. You can be sure the full process is legal because the tax planning will be disclosed to the HMRC and a corresponding scheme disclosure number is received. This guarantees that all the law under HMRC are fully complied with. To add to this, you'll be able to get a written legal opinion from the leading Counsel. With these two facts within your file, nobody can accuse you of tax evasion.

Stamp Duty Mitigation can be employed in most transactions, both residential as well as commercial. The higher the cost of the transaction, the more beneficial will be the scheme. Though the full benefit from the Stamp Duty Mitigation planning will be for transactions above £500,000, for transactions in the range of £250,000, you're going to get substantial savings. Usually you'll have to give the advisers 50% of the SDLT plus applicable VAT. The balance 's what it will save you so that as you will observe, for top transactions, the savings is going to be substantial.

1000s of cases of Stamp Duty Mitigation have been done in the United Kingdom successfully. The tax planning method continues to be questioned on a few occasions by HMRC, however they have been satisfied by the clarifications. This is simply because the tax planning is performed utilizing a legal loop hole for reducing stamp duty. Courts have time and again held that utilizing a legal loop hole to decrease tax is legal and it's the duty of the Government to plug the loop hole.

The Tax Planners who suggest Stamp Duty Mitigation are so clear on the success of the scheme, that they can provide a full refund of fees in case of a successful challenge by HMRC. There are a number of Chartered Accountants too who advise the clientele to go into for Stamp Duty Mitigation because they are convinced of its validity. In fact you can get your solicitor to talk to them, so you know what papers you are signing, for Stamp Duty Mitigation. However they may require a non disclosure agreement to be signed, before they part with the information concerning the scheme.

As it is legal and incorporates all the paperwork perfectly done, why don't you take a look at tax planning to minimize your SDLT? You can take benefit from Stamp Duty Mitigation provided the entire process of buying is not completed in all respects.

About the Author

I'm a self-employed tax consultant specialising in SDLT avoidance. I studied at Harvard in the late 1970s, and worked for different major companies throughout the 80s and 90s in management consultancy and merchant banking. In 1999 I set up in business helping people avoid stamp duty.

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