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8:35am on Saturday, 6th September, 2025:
Comment
Yesterday, Angela Rayner resigned as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Minister. The reason seems to be that she took two pieces of advice that both said "we don't think you need to pay extra tax but speak to a tax specialist" as being good enough evidence that she didn't need to pay extra tax or to speak to a tax specialist.
It's a shame she didn't ask ChatGPT for its opinion.
Me:
This is a question about UK stamp duty laws. Suppose a person owns a 25% share in a house, but sells that share to a trust. The beneficiary of the trust is a child of the person who sold their share to the trust. The person uses some of the money from this sale to buy a different house. Should the person pay standard stamp duty on the different house or a higher rate?
ChatGPT:
Great question — this touches on the UK's Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) rules and in particular the "higher rates for additional dwellings" (commonly the 3% surcharge).
Let's walk through it carefully:
...
[A bunch of step-by-step explanations]
...
In short:
If the transfer to the trust genuinely removes the person's beneficial interest in the first property, then their purchase of a new home should only attract standard SDLT. If they retain any beneficial interest (directly or through a settlor-interested trust), the higher rate would apply.
I think that would have been enough for me to ask a professional (or to ask ChatGPT a follow-up question) to see if I did retain any beneficial interest or not, regardless of whether I was Housing Minister at the time.
Your experience with ChatGPT may say differently, of course.
Still, at least our politicians do have the integrity to resign when they make errors, even when those are of a technical nature.
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Copyright © 2025 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).