It’s an alarming thought that there are at least 50 tax planning areas concerning property. However it is reassuring that Philip Spencer has not only outlined all 50 in this book in a most succinct fashion, but has broken down each area into points to highlight the problems and opportunities available. This highly practical approach allows you to pick up this book and drill down to your particular query very quickly and efficiently.

At the top level the book is divided into four sections focusing on four categories of property owners: Property investors; Property dealers and developers; Trading premises; and Private residences.

I found this far more useful arrangement than the traditional tax book that tends to either address issues tax by tax or by type of transaction. After all the busy practitioner has a trader with a short lease query in front of him, not a lease query that happens to be raised by a trader.

So your client, a property developer, wants you to check out the potential VAT with his next deal. You turn straight to chapter 26: VAT Points for Property Developers. The chapter starts with a diagram of how the seven points link into each other in chronological order, as does every chapter. This is a useful aide memoire to use when writing to advise your client, or even to copy and keep on the front of the file so you can see where the next VAT issue is likely to arise as the transaction progresses.

The text in this book will not give you the solution to every last tax problem that can occur but it does map out the common areas with good cross references to regulations, case law and other parts of the book where relevant. For example the VAT chargeable on the sale of a building will affect the Stamp Duty Land Tax payable so Philip directs his reader to point 5.3 in the SDLT chapter.

There are many examples in this book, which is always good for clarity. However the one criticism I have is that the examples are written as paragraphs and not set in tables which can make following the numbers a little tricky. Many examples could also benefit from taking one step further to illustrate the total tax payable when the client finally gets the cash in his pocket.

When you meet a client who owns property, or is thinking of investing in property (don’t they all?), slip this volume in your briefcase for instant answers to the questions he may raise. The specific transaction may require more research but at least you can quickly outline the problem areas and potential for tax breaks if the deal is structured correctly.

Rebecca Cave. Taxation, July 05