Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes 2021-22

View Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes. 

This is our fifth annual statistics publication summarising trends in the devolved taxes, Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) and Scottish Landfill Tax (SLfT), published on 27 January 2023.

The data in the publication covers the period 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022

1.74 MB
Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes 2021-22 - Publication
Download PDF
362.59 KB
Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes 2021-22 - Figures and Tables
Download XLS

Executive summary

Land and Buildings Transaction Tax

• £827 million in LBTT revenues were declared due during 2021/22, including £161 million net Annual Dwelling Supplement (ADS) payments, some portion of which may later be reclaimed. • In 2021/22, residential conveyances accounted for 69% (£573 million) of total LBTT declared due, non-residential conveyances accounted for 28% (£227 million) and leases accounted for 3% (£26 million).

• A record high for LBTT revenues from residential conveyances was recorded in 2021/22. This comes after a large drop in 2020/21, due to the restrictions introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. There had been a steady year-on-year increase between 2015/16 and 2019/20.

• Residential LBTT revenue excluding ADS is dominated by transactions in the £325,000 to £750,000 band, which made up 58% of residential revenue in 2021/22 while making up 13% of residential returns. 40% of residential returns received in 2021/22 fell into the nil rate (£0 to £145,000) tax band, the lowest seen in a year, and continuing the year-on-year decrease from 53% in 2015/16. Additional Dwelling Supplement

• £188 million gross ADS was declared due in 2021/22, a 22% increase on the previous year. Gross ADS declared due increased every year from 2016/17 to 2019/20 before falling in 2020/21, reflecting a drop in the number of LBTT returns received.

• ADS was declared due for 23% of all residential conveyances in 2021/22, up from 21% in the previous year. • For 84% of ADS returns submitted in 2021/22, the taxpayer stated they did not intend to reclaim the ADS declared due. This is up from 80% in the previous year and is the highest percentage since ADS was introduced. Transactions where the taxpayer does not intend to reclaim the ADS due are more likely to be lower in value compared to transactions where the taxpayer intends to reclaim ADS.

• 84% of ADS reclaims are made within one year of the original transaction.

Non-Residential Transactions

• £227 million LBTT was declared due for non-residential conveyances in 2021/22. This is an 82% increase on 2020/21, and a 31% increase on 2019/20.

• Each year so far, the largest 5% of transactions have contributed 71% to 75% of total LBTT revenues from non-residential conveyances, with a similar distribution for leases (64% to 74%). Leases

• Leases contributed £26 million LBTT revenue in 2021/22, the second highest annual total so far. The highest ever annual total was £29 million in 2018/19.

• Three-year lease reviews resulted in net LBTT declared due of £1.2 million in 2021/22. This value was partially offset by other review types (assignations and terminations) so that the net LBTT declared due for all reviews of a lease was £0.6 million.

• 4,590 LBTT returns for reviews of a lease were received in 2021/22, an increase of 58% from 2020/21, which saw a low number of returns due disruptions caused by the COVID 19 pandemic. 67% declared no change in LBTT due from the original lease, 20% declared additional LBTT due and 13% resulted in a claim for repayment of LBTT. Three year lease reviews accounted for 84% of reviews of a lease, with assignations making up just under 7% and terminations making up almost 10%.

Sub-Scotland

• The City of Edinburgh accounted for £125 million in residential LBTT revenues (excluding ADS) in 2021/22, 30% of the total. The second largest contributor, Glasgow City, accounted for £33 million (8%), although there were similar numbers of residential conveyances in both local authorities (around 12,500).

• In 2021/22, the proportion of residential conveyance returns in which the taxpayer declared ADS due, but did not intend to reclaim it, ranged from 10% to 29%. The highest were in Argyll and Bute(29%), Na-h-Eileanan Siar (29%), and Dundee City (26%). The lowest were in Midlothian (10%) and East Renfrewshire (11%).

Reliefs

• £131 million of potential LBTT revenue was foregone to reliefs in 2021/22, with around 17,700 returns receiving relief.

• From 2020/21 to 2021/22, the number of returns claiming relief increased nearly six-fold from 3,030 to 17,700. This is predominantly due to the reversal of a temporary change to the upper threshold for the nil rate band of tax (from £145,000 to £250,000 from 15 July 2020 to 31 March 2021) which essentially rendered First-Time Buyer relief temporarily redundant. When compared to the last pre-pandemic year (2019/20) the figure is up 14% from 15,530.

• Non-residential transactions accounted for the 73% of revenue forgone to reliefs in 2021/22, primarily group relief (53% of all relief).

Scottish Landfill Tax

• Scottish Landfill Tax revenue has fallen from £149 million in 2015/16 to £125 million in 2021/22. Total tonnage of declared taxable disposables was 2,028,700 tonnes. This is up 13% on the previous year, but down slightly (less than 1%) on the last pre-pandemic year (2019/20). Discounting the pandemic-affected year 2020/21, there is a decreasing trend in tonnage of waste going to landfill.

• £125 million of SLfT declared due in 2021/22 represents an increase of 18% from 2020/21, and an increase of 6% on 2019/20. Previously there was a year on year downward trend, which had been driven by decreases in the disposal of standard rate waste to landfill (1.35 million tonnes in 2021/22, up 15% from the previous year).