In this month's briefing, Helen Lethaby reviews recent developments including proposed changes to the rules on the deduction of income tax at source and the tax treatment of manufactured payments.
A union representing senior HMRC staff has questioned the government’s commitment to tackling ‘tax avoidance by big business and the wealthy’.
HMRC has published its guidance on the litigation and settlement strategy relaunched last July. The draft guidance was well received, HMRC said, with ‘very few comments on the actual material’.
‘Rotten to the core’
HM Treasury has published a ‘non-exhaustive list’ of changes made to draft legislation on controlled foreign companies between the February 2012 update and the Finance Bill published on 29 March.
The Companies Act 2006 (Amendment of Part 23) (Investment Companies) Regulations, SI 2012/952, relax the conditions that a company has to meet in order to benefit from the distributions regime for investment companies.
‘Amazon tax probe in media spotlight’
‘Amazon's tax arrangements are in the spotlight this morning after national newspapers followed up The Bookseller's initial investigation.
The government is consulting on possible changes to the taxation of income received by REITs investing in other REITs and the role that the REIT regime can play in social housing.
George Osborne told journalists earlier this week that he ‘candidly conveyed’ to the Indian government his concerns over proposed changes to India’s tax code that could reopen a $2.9bn dispute with Vodafone.
‘George Osborne, UK chancellor, attacked India’s proposed law to retrospectively tax cross-border deals, in the first such criticism from a foreign official. He warned that the move would damage the overall investment sentiment in Asia’s third-largest economy.