Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate he has made of the tax gap between tax owed and tax paid by private landlords.

The information requested is not available as HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) does not make a separate estimate of the proportion of the total tax gap attributable to private landlords.

However, HMRC does estimate the tax gap arising from individuals in employment who have not declared and therefore not paid tax on lettings income. The latest estimate of this tax gap was £600 million for the tax year 2016-17.

HMRC publishes the 2014-15 estimate of this tax gap in Table H.5, and describes the methodology used to project this forward to 2016-17 in paragraphs H61 to H73, in ‘Measuring tax gaps 2018 edition: methodological annex’ available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps.

The Government has made excellent progress to lower the overall tax gap, which remains at its lowest level for five years at 5.7% for 2016-17.