HMRC To Share Tenants' Income Details With Landlords

HMRC will share income information with social landlords to help them implement the government’s Pay to Stay rules. The Housing and Planning Bill says that while social landlords will have responsibility for ensuring tenants declare their incomes, HMRC will be given new powers to disclose data in order to allow landlords to verify the information and ensure they are charging the correct rents.  Social landlords will be given the power to require their tenants to declare what their household income is. However, the legislation also empowers HMRC to share information to ensure “declarations of income are correct”. It is not clear if HMRC would share information on individual tenants’ incomes under the legislation. The bill allows information to be shared between HMRC and landlords, via the secretary of state, or a body that would act as a ‘gatekeeper’ for this purpose. Read more on Inside Housing.