THE UK Revenue and Customs announced an unprecedented amnesty for hundreds of thousands of British tax residents with assets offshore, including holiday homes, property companies and bank accounts, in an attempt to recover billions of pounds in unpaid tax.
Taxpayers will be given two months to declare unpaid tax on rent from foreign properties, or on interest from accounts in the Channel Islands and other tax havens.
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Government inspections launched a mega operation last week targeting holiday villas and rental accommodation across the Algarve. A total of 147 fines were issued for various infractions, but primarily to property owners not holding the requisite rental licence.
Five teams from the Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Económica (ASAE) made a total of 64 inspections over April 10, 11, and 12, targeting private owners and middlemen such as villa rental agencies and real estate firms.
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To many people purchasing property in Portugal, either as a holiday home or as a permanent residence, can seem fraught with difficulties. You are in a foreign country with a foreign language, foreign laws, taxes and customs, and will rely heavily on your legal advisor or the sales agent to guide you.
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There is a lot to think about when moving to Portugal. It’s hard enough moving to a different place in your home country, but relocating abroad often involves extra matters to be organised and is simpler to put some on the back burner for a time when life has settled down.
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FACING UP to the complex licensing legislation affecting holiday rental properties which, to date shows no signs of being altered, one Algarve villa rental agency has launched a service to prepare licence applications for its clients.
Caspo Business, based in Praia do Carvoeiro, has chosen to remove all rental properties from its website until owners obtain the licença de utilização turística needed to make villas and apartments legal for rental to holidaymakers.
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The problems affecting the licensing of properties for rent deepened this week.
A villa owner in Quinta do Lago made public some documents that show it is impossible to obtain the necessary licence to rent a private villa to holidaymakers.
After submitting plans, drawings and all the necessary application forms to Loulé Câmara to alter the property’s usage classification from habitation purposes to tourism so it could legally be rented to tourists, the owner received a refusal letter in December from the Direcção-Geral de Turismo (DGT), the entity with the final say on the matter.
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Thousands of British people, who have moved or retired abroad, could be chased for tax going back six years following a recent court ruling. The landmark decision changed the way the Inland Revenue & Customs calculates whether you are deemed to be resident in Britain and therefore whether you must pay UK tax on your worldwide income and gains.
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C.G.T. = Capital Gains Tax = Mais-Valía An issue people in the past never worried about when selling a property was tax, but now it is!! Everyone will agree this is a valid concern. What most people do not know is that it is at the point of purchase that one should be concerned about capital gains.
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Development control in Portugal and how it works.
It must be the ambition of every country to manage their territory so as to guarantee to future generations that land and buildings will be properly laid out; that everything will be planned to take into account factors such as national and cultural resources, environmental issues and the division of land on a fair basis between public and private interests.
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