Insights
Practical writing on the tax, VAT, MTD, rating and compliance questions that come up on short-term let and holiday let portfolios — with the primary sources cited, and dated so you can see when we wrote it.
Can booking commissions and agency fees be deducted before the 5% is applied? Edinburgh's guide and VisitScotland's national guidance answer differently. For providers it changes every return; for the Council it could change receipts by millions.
By STL Accounting and Finance
Read the full analysis →Edinburgh's levy is live; four more councils are approved for 2027; Highland is consulting on a fixed-rate scheme. This piece covers the calculation for each approved scheme, the VAT position, and the records you need to keep for the initial-transaction rule.
Digital platform operators report seller data to HMRC annually under the Platform Operators (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2023. This piece explains what is actually reported for STL hosts, and how to reconcile the reported figure to a tax return.
MTD for Income Tax started for the highest-income taxpayers on 6 April 2026. This is who is in scope, what a quarterly update actually contains, and what HMRC has said about penalties in the first year.
Nudge letters give the deadline shown in the letter itself — always check the letter, do not assume a standard period. The 90-day disclosure-and-payment window under the Let Property Campaign is a separate clock that starts when HMRC issues a Disclosure Reference Number acknowledging the taxpayer's notification, not on the notification itself. This piece works through the sequence — check the letter, check the return, choose the right response route.