Who pays income tax on a fifted property?

Hello. I would be very grateful if someone at HMRC could please advise me on the following. We are considering gifting a rental property to our son. CGT aside (which we would settled ourselves with HMRC), if the property remains tenanted our son wishes us to remain as landlord (which I understand we can do) and he to have nothing to do with that beyond ownership. Since we will continue to be the landlord on the contract, will the rental income be viewed as income by myself (and wife) or thereafter as our son’s income (for income tax purposes) and can our son elect income to be viewed as ours if he doesn’t want to start doing annual tax returns (which he doesn’t want to do). We and our son are all basic rate tax payers and so the tax take will be the same whoever actually has to pay the tax. Many thanks!

Hi. I would be grateful if someone is able to respond to the question above. It has appeared on the forum board but without any replies. Many thanks.

Hi,
As you are in the process of considering gifting a rental property to your son, we would only be able to offer limited advice. You can see guidance here:
TSEM9918 - Ownership and income tax: Specific types of property: land and buildings - taxation of rental income
TSEM9920 - Ownership and income tax: Specific types of property: land and buildings - examples
Thank you.

Not HMRC...this is a legal nightmare. If you gift the property to your son and account for CGT then you are relinquishing your beneficial interest in full on gift. If you dont have a beneficial interest you cant have a tenancy agreement with a tenant in your name in which you have no legal interest. If you establish a beneficial interest (via legal routes) the gift is nul and void. The tenant should have an tenancy agreement with your son and he should account for tax via SA. (Its not just the tax position that is messy, in the scenario you propose if anything happened to you the rent would be payable to your estate not your son, if anything happened to your son the property would be part of his estate and even though the tenant had an agremeent with you the property could be sold regardless of that agreement)