Billions of taxpayer’s cash spent subsidising the lavish lifestyles of landlords could be clawed back through a “Robin Hood tax for renters,” campaigners said yesterday.

Generation Rent research has revealed that the private landlords driving rising rents effectively receive £26.7 billion a year in government subsidies.

That means the property hoarders are costing every British household £1,011 — enough for a top-of-the-range TV or family holiday to Spain.

If the Treasury saved the £26.7bn subsidy, it would be enough to cancel Chancellor George Osborne’s planned public-spending cull.

More than £9bn of that is handed directly to the landlords through housing benefit.

Now Generation Rent is demanding that the payments be recouped through a 22 per cent landlords levy and spent on 90,000 council homes.

Campaign director Alex Hilton said: “It’s time landlords started paying more of their fair share so first-time buyers could have a level playing field and the government could have the resources to build more social housing.”

On top of housing benefit, landlords also take advantage of tax breaks such as mortgage interest relief and “wear and tear” allowance that cost the Treasury billions every year.

That has helped British land barons, who own 4.75 million properties, bank £77.7bn every year — more than the gross domestic product of Morocco.

Despite that, HM Revenue and Customs believes a massive £550m in tax due on rental income goes unpaid annually.

“While renters have borne the brunt of austerity, landlords have enjoyed their own little economy the size of Morocco’s supported by subsidies from the UK taxpayer that could be better used fixing the housing crisis,” added Mr Hilton.

Public support for the landlord tax poured in through an online petition set up by Generation Rent yesterday.

But London Rent Cap spokeswoman Becky Ely feared that landlords would simply add the cost of the tax to already exorbitant rents.

“The best way to help private renters in London is to introduce a London rent cap so that ordinary people and families can afford to live in the city they work in and love,” she told the Star.

National Landlords Association chief executive Richard Lambert accused Generation Rent of appearing to not “understand the difference between a balance sheet asset and profit and loss.”