Responding in haste and with a rant perhaps without due consideration.... but I suspect this call from the IoD aka big business has a great deal to do with ordinary people actually managing to gain a mite of capital and financial independence and getting themselves out of the deliberate corporate entrapment of the consuming, debt-ridden masses. With government connivance they ripped away, in some cases directly stole, our pensions with impunity, the government tax us ordinary workers almost to death, yet they (allied to government) keep their own privileges and pensions, paying sums way beyond most people's means to savvy accountants to find the obscure tax loops for their wealth... but as soon as ordinary people start to try and directly manage their own pension arrangements and gain some wealth/independence (and quite successfully)... whoops... let's pull the rug from under them. It's all about control, control, control of the workforce/ordinary people and their own bottom line. Regarding the IoD’s secondary proposal, this will put money straight into the pockets of the financial élite (mostly the corporate big boys) and very little meaningfully into the pockets of ordinary people. Likewise their suggestion to rollup their income tax free from financial investments until money is withdrawn. Such lack of confidence and thence lack of return in such investments seem to me to be a direct result of greed by purveyors of these financial instruments (err… pension funds too) with their very high management charges and their mis-selling tactics. These corporate entities cannot be trusted. So, with our pensions up the swannee we started to do it ourselves, gained or started to gain that independence and hence… panic in the corridors of power…! (Sorry, I don’t understand the point about fund managers in the UK and those in Ireland, Luxembourg etc. Can you explain please?) I totally agree with the gist of what was quoted in the article from David Austin and the likely social outcomes for ordinary people and landlords, which could be absolutely devastating. Despite the IoD pressure, any government would have to be stupid beyond belief and/or seriously corrupt or in hock to these same big boys to do something like this which would have consequences on such a scale. However, since government of any flavour is all these things, and government is almost never about truly serving the good of all the people (just a few people), we need to fight such a proposal tooth and nail. Apart from writing to my MP and the NLA (forwarding the text of your article), what else can we do? My husband and I have been struggling all our working lives to improve our lot and that of our children and, just when we begin to see a glimmer of independence light at the end of the tunnel….. BASED ON PAST PERFORMANCE, WHAT VIABLE REASON HAVE GOVERNMENT, BIG BUSINESS OR ANY OF THE FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS EVER GIVEN US AS TO WHY SHOULD WE EVER TRUST ANY ENTITY BUT OURSELVES WITH OUR HARD-EARNED CASH?

Hear Hear! I don't see the IoD suggesting that interest payments made by any other type of business should cease to be tax-deductible. B2L is attracting opprobrium from many envious directions currently and being blamed for all sorts of ills.

Power to your elbow Sylvia! I couldn't agree more with what you have to say. Every BTL investor in the country should be against these mad cap proposals. What are Property Secrets going to do about it?

I thought I'd see where this story comes from, knowing how the press like to sensationalise. It's on page 24 of their publication here: http: / /www .iod .com /intershoproot /eCS /Store /en /pdfs /policy _paper _tax _savings .pdf

The IOD proposal is totally nonsensical. The interest payments are an operating expense and as with every other business are deductible. They claim the government is losing billions a year through this so called "tax break" - what utter rubbish! If there wasnt relief on interest payments, nobody would be able to afford to invest in B2L and therefore there wouldn't be any rental income in the first place. Have the Iod stated why they consider the property business should run on a different basis than any other business.

The whole thing is nonsense - the IOD should have published this on April 1st. All the talk of "concessions" and "losses" by the Treasury is the usual use of emotionally loaded words to obscure the truth. It's not a concession to allow the setting of business costs against business income - every type of business does it. If businesses were taxed only on income there would be no businesses left. The Treasury doesn't make "losses".It either takes money or it doesn't - though I suppose Dick Turpin considered that he'd made a loss if he let a stage coach get past him. Can you imagine it? The day after Budget Day 2008 one million tenants get Notices to Quit, their landlords send their house deeds back to the mortgage lenders, share dealings in all finance companies are suspended, the Bank of England says it cannot possibly assist all these banks and quasi banks, property auctions report that have no buyers attending, all property purchases that have not yet exchanged are cancelled, after prices have fallen by 50% the stock market suspends dealing in all shares and closes for two weeks, the chief executive of the Insititute of Directors jumps from a very high building .....