Revenue Scotland has revised its view on the application of Schedule 13 of the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Act 2013 (‘LBTTA’) to cases where a charity is one of a number of buyers who are or will become common owners. We now accept that Charities relief from LBTT may be claimed for the charity’s (or charities’) pro indiviso share(s) of the relevant land transaction.
Following the close of the SLfT consultation on waste fines, we have now published an analysis of the responses and the new ‘waste fines’ section of legislative guidance. This new section of guidance will implement the conditions set out by The Scottish Landfill Tax (Qualifying Material) Order 2016, and will come into force from 1 October 2016.
Revenue Scotland has collected £572m in its first full year of operation.
Scotland’s devolved tax authority, which is responsible for the administration and collection of Land and Building Transaction Tax (LBTT) and Scottish Landfill Tax (SLfT), revealed the total revenue raised when it published its 2015-2016 annual report and financial statements today. The revenue collected is transferred to the Scottish Consolidated Fund to support the delivery of public services in Scotland.
Revenue Scotland would like to remind agents of their responsibilities in respect to Arrangements Satisfactory for LBTT. Transactions for residential properties with a chargeable consideration of £40,000 and over will require an LBTT return to be made, even if no tax is due. Full details on which land transactions are notifiable for LBTT purposes and which are not can be found at LBTT4003”
On 4 August 2016, the Bank of England announced a 0.25% decrease in the base interest rate. With effect from 10 August 2016, we have amended our rates accordingly. Please visit our penalties and interest pages for more information.
Terminology used in SLfT and information on exemptions
Revenue Scotland is responsible for the collection and management of the devolved Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) and Scottish Landfill Tax (SLfT). These taxes are the equivalent of Stamp Duty and Landfill Tax in England and Northern Ireland, and Land Transaction Tax and Landfill Disposals Tax in Wales.
This annual statistics publication summarises annual trends in the devolved taxes managed by Revenue Scotland. It also provides more detailed data and commentary than our other more regular statistical outputs for example:
This publication mainly focuses on data from the 2023/24 financial year, with comparisons to the four previous years. Some charts span the full period since Revenue Scotland began collecting tax, dating back to April 2015. The Figures and Tables spreadsheet which accompanies this publication contains data spanning back to 2015 for many of the charts and tables which only display the last five years in this document. For tables and figures where only the latest year of data is shown, older data can be found in our previous annual publications.
The accompanying Figures and Tables spreadsheet contains some additional tables of data which are not included here in the main publication. These are clearly marked on the spreadsheet contents tab.
Some total figures quoted in the publication may not precisely match the figures as calculated by summing rows in the accompanying tables, this is due to rounding in the tables, whereas total figures quoted in the publication are calculated from the underlying unrounded data.
The LBTT data presented in this publication comes from LBTT returns. Returns are grouped by year based on the date the return was received by Revenue Scotland (the submitted date). Appendix A explains how data on this basis relates to data on an effective date (date of transaction) basis.
Appendix B explains how Revenue Scotland’s Official Statistics publications relate to its Annual Report and Financial Statements, and the differences in how the figures are compiled.
Revenue Scotland also publishes monthly Official Statistics on LBTT and quarterly Official Statistics on SLfT. More up-to-date high-level statistics are available from these two publications, but they do not contain some of the more detailed data found in this publication. Both can be found on the Revenue Scotland website and the open data is found on statistics.gov.scot.
This publication is an Official Statistics publication for Scotland. Official and Accredited Official Statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics by professionally independent statisticians. Both undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs and are produced free from any political interference.
For any further information please contact us at statistics@revenue.scot
This publication is Crown Copyright and is released under the Open Government Licence. You are free to reuse this information provided the source is acknowledged.
All data were extracted as at 31 May 2024 but, in keeping with Revenue Scotland’s statistics revisions policy, some of the data relating to earlier years has not been updated. For LBTT and SLfT, only data for 2022/23 onwards has been updated (and for sub-Scotland geographies, only the most recent year was updated).
Reliefs
There are various data quality issues with reliefs information collected from LBTT returns in previous years, although these issues do not affect the total LBTT declared due.
The most common data quality issue affecting total revenue foregone to reliefs is that, prior to the introduction of a new electronic tax system in July 2019, 4% of taxpayers claiming reliefs incorrectly entered the value of the relief claimed as the full consideration - e.g. the total price of the property – rather than the LBTT amount that would be due without reliefs. This means that simply summing the value of reliefs claimed on tax returns would overstate the value of LBTT revenue forgone to reliefs. The LBTT revenue forgone to reliefs needs to be estimated from other information provided by the taxpayer, and hence the results presented are referred to as estimates. Full details of the methods used to produce the estimates can be found on the LBTT data requests section[1] of the Revenue Scotland website.
From 2015/16 to 2018/19, the relief amount was estimated in this way for 10% of returns claiming a relief. Improvements to the tax system have reduced the need to estimate the relief amount, and in 2023/24, the relief amount was estimated for 1% of returns.
Some transactions may be eligible for more than one relief, but only one relief may be recorded by a tax payer. This means that individual reliefs may be underestimated, although this does not affect the total value of tax foregone to reliefs.
It is also worth noting that the estimates are likely to underestimate ADS (and consequently LBTT) revenue forgone to reliefs to some extent. ADS is due on most purchases of a residential property by a non-natural person, such as a company. When a full relief is claimed reducing the LBTT liability to nil, in some cases the ADS has not been declared (rather than declared and reduced to nil by relief). Therefore, although the tax position is correct, it is likely that data on reliefs for residential transactions will underestimate ADS revenues forgone. There is a similar issue where a non-residential transaction contains a mixture of residential and commercial elements (‘mixed’ property transactions are treated as non-residential transactions for LBTT). Again, the overall tax position for the relevant transactions remains correct.
[1] The relevant file is dated 11 October 2018 and named ‘LBTT – reliefs.xlsx’.
The LBTT legislation prescribes that an LBTT return must be submitted and arrangements made for payment of the LBTT due to Revenue Scotland before the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland can proceed with registration of title. The LBTT return includes a range of information about the transaction, tax liabilities and reliefs claimed. Amendments and corrections can be made to LBTT returns up to one year following the filing date. This may lead to revisions to the LBTT data in this publication. The vast majority of LBTT returns are submitted online via the Revenue Scotland website by agents acting on behalf of taxpayers.
Notes on SLfT returns
The SLfT data presented in this publication comes from SLfT returns and is based on the period the return relates to. A SLfT return must be submitted and arrangements made for payment of the SLfT due to Revenue Scotland by 44 days after the end of the quarter. The SLfT return includes a range of information about the tax liabilities and credits claimed, along with supplementary information on the type and amount of waste disposed of in the quarter. Amendments and corrections can be made to SLfT returns up to one year following the filing date. This may lead to revisions to the SLfT data in this publication. The vast majority of SLfT returns are submitted online via the Revenue Scotland portal.
Other Data Sources
Users should note that this publication is not a commentary on the volume of waste from all sources or volume of waste landfilled in Scotland. Nor is it a commentary on the volume or value of land and property transactions in Scotland.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency publishes comprehensive waste data for Scotland on its website.
Registers of Scotland publishes comprehensive property data for Scotland on its website.
Other UK Statistics
Statistics for other countries of the UK are produced by different organisations. These are listed below. Note that different countries may have different tax rates which should be considered when comparing the statistics.
For Wales, The Welsh Revenue Authority produce statistics on the Land Transaction Tax and Landfill Disposal Tax in Wales, which are found on their website.
For England and Northern Ireland, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) produce the Stamp Duty Land Tax statistics and the Landfill Tax is found in their Environmental Taxes Bulletin.
The purpose of this appendix is to explain how Revenue Scotland’s monthly LBTT statistics, quarterly SLfT statistics, and annual statistics (this publication) relate to the revenue figures that appear in the Devolved Taxes Account in Revenue Scotland’s Annual Report and Financial Statements (referred to in this annex as the Annual Report). The figures in the statistics and Annual Report are produced on a different basis.
The figures in the Annual Report and Accounts are fixed for a given year (at the point at which the accounts are closed), while the published statistics are updated on a monthly basis with changes largely reflecting ADS reclaims (and some other amendments) which have been received after the original LBTT tax returns were submitted. After 24 months, figures in the monthly statistics publication are frozen and no longer updated, this is for statistical disclosure control purposes to avoid revealing small changes which might relate to a single transaction.
The Annual Report and published statistics are both based on the date the LBTT return is submitted but with some adjustments made to the Annual Report[1] to accrue revenue for LBTT returns (and claims for repayment of ADS) received in April and May (after the end of the financial year) with an effective date (or sale date for the previous main residence) relating to the previous financial year or earlier. These April/May adjustments typically result in relatively small differences between the Annual Report and published statistics, although the difference was more pronounced in the first year of LBTT (2015/16) because there were no reverse accruals relating to the previous year.
Differences in reported figures are mainly due to the different treatments of claims for repayment of ADS in the Annual Report and published statistics. This annex focuses on differences arising due to the different treatments of claims for repayment of ADS and is intended to help the reader make meaningful comparisons between the two sources of financial information.
The published statistics allocate claims for repayment of ADS to the period in which the LBTT return (with ADS declared due) was originally submitted. The accounts published in the Annual Report typically allocate claims for repayment of ADS to the accounting year in which the claim for repayment was received. Therefore, the statistics cover the net tax declared in a year, rather than tax taken. For example, a claim for repayment of ADS received in June 2023 relating to an LBTT return originally received in March 2023 would be allocated to March 2023 (2022/23) in the published statistics and to 2023/24 in the Annual Report. This repayment could not be allocated to 2022/23 in the accounts because the 2022/23 accounts were closed as of 31 May 2023.
[1] The Annual Report and Financial Statements are produced to comply with the accounting principles and disclosure requirements of the Government Financial Reporting Manual.
Table 14: LBTT excluding ADS, gross ADS declared due and the value of ADS repayments claimed by year the claim for repayment was received and the year the claim relates to
| Year | £ millions | ||||||||||||
|
a) LBTT ADS |
b) Gross ADS | Value of ADS repayments claimed |
Net LBTT (a + b - c) |
Devolved Taxes figure for LBTT | |||||||||
| And year the claim relates to | |||||||||||||
| 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | c) All | ||||||
| 2019/20 | 478.5 | 166.4 | 1.6 | 15.2 | 23.9 | 40.7 | 604.2 | 597.4 | |||||
| 2020/21 | 398.8 | 156.6 | 0.1 | 2.0 | 19.3 | 23.1 | 44.5 | 510.9 | 517.4 | ||||
| 2021/22 | 666.5 | 192.6 | 0.0 | 0.7 | 4.5 | 20.1 | 26.9 | 52.2 | 806.9 | 807.2 | |||
| 2022/23 | 679.9 | 210.6 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 1.1 | 2.2 | 17.2 | 27.9 | 48.4 | 842.1 | 847.8 | ||
| 2023/24 | 614.4 | 238.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 1.9 | 22.5 | 39.9 | 64.4 | 788.8 | 784.4 | |
The key figure in Table 14 that helps illustrate the different treatment of claims for repayment of ADS is the £22.5 million of claims for repayment of ADS received in 2023/24 relating to LBTT returns initially received 2022/23. In the published statistics these claims do not result in any adjustment to the net ADS declared due in 2023/24. However, the net ADS reported in the statistics against 2022/23 is revised (reduced) to reflect these claims as they relate to ADS originally declared on LBTT returns received in that financial year.
In the Annual Report, these repayments are reported as reductions in revenue in 2023/24 as they were received after the accounting period for 2022/23 was closed, and hence the accounts for 2022/23 are not revised. To compare the published statistics for LBTT relating to 2023/24 (as at the 31st March 2024) with the LBTT revenue reported in Revenue Scotland’s 2023/24 Annual Report (accounts), the ADS repayment claims received during 2023/24 relating to earlier years should be deducted from the statistics.
Table 14 shows that the Devolved Taxes figure for LBTT in Revenue Scotland’s accounts and the Net LBTT figure taken from the published statistics (adjusted for ADS reclaims in previous years, as discussed above) can broadly be reconciled. There are some other reasons for differences, but these are generally more minor and it is not practical to adjust the statistics for all possible differences.
The most significant of these is the impact of the accounting accruals process which attributes revenue in the first two months of the accounting year (April and May) to the previous financial year if the effective date of the relevant transaction was before 1 April. For every financial year there is revenue coming in from April and May of the following year (accruals) and revenue subtracted (reverse accruals) from April and May of the year in question which was included in the accounts of the previous year.
The accruals and reverse accruals often roughly cancel out, but for 2019/20 and 2020/21 there were more noticeable difference which in turn resulted in more significant differences between Net LBTT and Devolved Taxes figure for LBTT in Table 14.
For 2019-20, accruals from April and May 2020 (into 2019/20) were reduced as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic which significantly impacted LBTT revenue in late March and April/May 2020. This resulted in a lower figure in the accounts (£597.4 million) than in the net figure shown in Table 14 (£604.2 million), a difference of nearly £7 million.
The opposite effect is seen for 2020/21 where the accrual into the accounts (from April/May 2021 into 2020/21) outweighs the accrual from April/May 2020 into 2019/20. In this case the figure in the accounts for 2020/21 (£517.4 million) is around £7 million more than the net figure in Table 14 (£510.9 million).
Table 15:Comparison of SLfT declared due reported in Revenue Scotland statistics with SLfT revenue reported in the Revenue Scotland Annual Report and Financial Statements
| Year | £ millions | |
| SLfT declared due (in statistics1) |
SLfT revenue net of repayments, excluding penalties & interest and revenue losses (in accounts2) |
|
| 2015/16 | 149.3 | 147.0 |
| 2016/17 | 148.0 | 149.1 |
| 2017/18 | 146.6 | 148.0 |
| 2018/19 | 141.3 | 148.5 |
| 2019/20 | 118.6 | 119.0 |
| 2020/21 | 106.3 | 106.5 |
| 2021/22 | 121.7 | 125.2 |
| 2022/23 | 110.1 | 109.7 |
| 2023/24 | 68.7 | 68.4 |
Notes:
Table 15 compares the SLfT declared due reported in Revenue Scotland Official Statistics with the SLfT revenue figures reported in Revenue Scotland’s Annual Report.
These statistics are reported in relation to the quarter in which the landfill disposal took place. For example, if a landfill operator submits an SLfT tax return in August 2023 relating to the quarter April - June 2023, the tax declared due is reported against that quarter (i.e. April - June 2023). Landfill operators have 12 months from the relevant date to amend their tax return and Revenue Scotland SLfT Statistics are revised up to 12 months after the quarter in question. If additional tax is declared, or identified through Revenue Scotland compliance activities, after this 12 month period, the statistics are not revised. This is to minimise the risk of disclosing Protected Taxpayer Information by updating tonnages and revenues by quarter, potentially showing changes relating only to single operators, or very small numbers of operators.
The Annual Report (accounts) reports revenue against the year in which the revenue was realised, with accrual adjustments in April and May. Unlike the statistics, any additional revenue (or reductions in revenue) realised during a financial year (but potentially relating to earlier years) will be reported as revenue in the accounts during that year and may lead to a difference between SLfT reported in the statistics and the accounts.