While we all get excited about Legg, keeping MPs’ second homes clean and their gardens neat and tidy, there is another part of this scandal that has yet to hit the headlines.
MPs are allowed to claim mortgage interest to help finance a second home, which then becomes their asset. Sir Christopher Kelly is looking into this and much else besides for new MPs, but not for existing members.
MPs have the potential to make a tidy sum in capital gains. There is no return to the taxpayer, having funded the mortgage.
Why should an MP keep this asset when they retire or lose their seat?
Expect the issue of capital gains to hit the headlines when Kelly reports in December. It could well dwarf everything that been revealed to date.
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I suppose theoretically there may be MPs who have made capital losses on property they have bought at the top of the market against which they have claimed mortgage interest. One wonders who the first MP will be to put a capital loss on their expenses.
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