.jpg)
.gif)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.gif)
.jpg)
.gif)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Hunt’s Headlines – Industry Reacts
Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement has been welcomed for cutting National Insurance and making tax easier for the self-employed. Being able to claim tax...
Read Full Article.jpg)
Cladding Tax – The Innocent Paying For The Guilty
In yet another damaging move for housebuilders already worried a recession could dampen the market, the government has announced that cladding remediation works will be funded by an extension to the Building Safety Levy.
The Building Safety Levy is a tax that every new build developer will be forced to pay, whether they were responsible or not for installing fire hazardous cladding.
“As well as not sorting this issue for five years, not being forthcoming with the list of guilty parties, unsafe buildings and required works, the government now appear to have decided that innocent builders of all sizes, who have never worked on any dangerously cladded building, should pay for the failures of those who have.”
– Richard Beresford
Chief executive, National Federation of Builders
Punishing the innocent
“Innocent leaseholders shouldn’t pay and neither should innocent builders. The entire housebuilding industry now appears to be paying for unsafe works that, for the vast majority of them, they never did
“The Building Safety Levy will be extended and chargeable on all new residential buildings in England. This is a sudden shift of direction from previous consultations that the NFB responded to and workshops we took part in, which identified that only higher-risk developments within scope of the Gateway 2 regulatory process will be targeted.”
Government goes back on its word
Beresford continues: “It is good to see cladding manufacturers now targeted but developers came together early to work with the government, agreed one cladding tax and took the governments word on the other. The government has gone back on their word and as with planning reform, it appears as though those who lose out the most will be SME builders.
“In the last few years construction has had eleven new taxes put on it, so if the Government is desperate to raise £3 billion on the backs of British business, it must do so knowing it will impact SME businesses and the Government’s own housebuilding ambitions.”
Picture: Grenfell.
Article written by Cathryn Ellis
24th April 2022