The Sun article- How landlords can offset higher property taxes

Incorporating isn't the automatic win it sounds like. Move a property into a limited company and you get corporation tax rates instead of income tax, plus full mortgage interest relief back, but you then also trigger a disposal for CGT and likely stamp duty on the transfer. For anyone who's owned a while with real equity built up, the tax bill to get in can wipe out years of the benefit you're trying to capture. Using a Special Purpose Vehicle or limited company usually works best for new purchases or portfolio landlords buying more, not as a knee-jerk reaction to one tax rise on an existing portfolio.

There is no easy tax solution for landlords. Claim every legitimate expense, then look at the portfolio property by property and consider selling the weaker performers.

Moving an existing buy-to-let into a limited company rarely provides an easy answer once you factor in stamp duty, capital gains tax, corporation tax and potentially dividend tax.

The direction of travel is more regulation, higher costs and higher taxation. For some landlords, the best mitigation may ultimately be careful pruning and moving capital into more tax-efficient, passive investments.

Landlords considering a limited company need to look beyond the tax rate. Moving an existing property into a company will usually mean refinancing it as well, and the mortgage available to a limited company may have different rates, fees and lending criteria from the deal held personally.

Before making any change, landlords should calculate the full cost of the move and make sure they are claiming every legitimate expense already available to them. For many, the better time to compare personal and company ownership is before the next purchase, rather than transferring an existing property purely because tax rates have risen.

A limited company is certainly worth considering, particularly for landlords building a portfolio, but moving existing properties into a company can trigger tax charges and other costs. Don’t do it simply because the headline tax rate looks more attractive.

Landlords should also make sure they are claiming every legitimate expense and tax relief available to them, as these can easily be overlooked.

For married couples and civil partners, it may also be worth reviewing who owns the property and receives the rental income. If one partner pays a lower rate of tax, changing the ownership split can sometimes reduce the household’s overall tax bill. However, there may be capital gains tax, stamp duty, mortgage and legal consequences to consider.

For landlords who are still working, pension contributions can be another option. While you generally cannot make pension contributions directly against rental income, contributions based on employment or self-employment earnings may reduce your o

The tax mitigation itself is really a question for a good accountant, not a mortgage broker, so I'd take the expenses and rate-band detail from them. Where I would add a warning is on the most talked-about move, incorporating into a limited company. On the tax side it can stack up, but people forget it isn't free on the mortgage side. Moving property into a company is treated as a sale and repurchase, so you refinance, usually onto company buy-to-let rates that sit higher than personal ones, with fresh stress tests, plus the costs and tax consequences on the transfer that your accountant will price in. For some landlords the sums still work well. For others, the mortgage and transfer costs eat much of the tax saving. So the tax decision and the mortgage decision can't be made in isolation. Model both together before you move, because the headline tax saving is only ever half the picture.