Once again just like last year the Budget measures were largely well flagged in advance with few surprises except for no increase in carbon tax and (perhaps less of surprise) a hiking of the VAT rate affecting restaurateurs, hoteliers and even hairdressers up to 13.5% (an effective increase of  50% from 9% will be painful!).

Mortgage Interest Tax Relief for Landlords will increase at last to 100%.

We have come a long way here and I have been campaigning and writing submissions to the Department of Finance for years now on this very issue.

The notion of ‘tax relief for landlords’ may not play well in certain media circles but many landlords today are ‘accidental’ rather than ‘professional’ per se and are as far removed from the nineteenth century caricature as could be imagined. 

The reality is that mortgage interest is a business expense in this context and the greater the supply of rentable property on the market the less acute the current housing crisis will become.

A lot done, more to do!

Below is my quick ‘cheat sheet’ of all the main measures in Budget 2019;