‘It looks to me like the triumph of big business – or rather the triumph of the Treasury's view of what big businesses need and want.
HM Treasury has invited comments on an ‘above the line’ research and development credit for large companies, to be introduced next year.
Companies should pay a fair rate of tax and ‘move vigorously towards the path of transparency’, the Labour peer and former newspaper publisher Lord Hollick told tax experts earlier this month, as campaigners renewed calls for country by country reporting (CBCR) by multinationals and claimed that
HMRC has published an ‘overview’ of the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme, which will provide tax reliefs for new shares issued on or after 6 April 2012 by small, ‘early stage’ companies. The reliefs will operate alongside the Enterprise Investment Scheme.
The European Commission has formally requested the UK to amend its legislation providing for ‘exit taxes’ on companies.
A targeted anti-avoidance rule intended to counter arrangements to secure a tax advantage in the transition to a new regime for life insurance companies will take effect from 21 March 2012 ‘because there is a significant risk to tax revenue arising from the transition’.
Proposed amendments to CAA 2001 will ensure that rules for calculating the lessee’s disposal value at the end of a long funding lease ‘operate as intended so that the relief available by way of capital allowances does not exceed the net expenditure of the lessee not otherwise relieved’.
Finance Bill 2012 will amend ITTOIA 2005 s 168 to deny an income tax or corporation tax deduction being given where a payment ‘arises from avoidance arrangements’.
Companies that have elected for the tonnage tax rules to apply to maritime transport activities and start to operate a non-EU/EEA-registered ship during the financial year starting on 1 April 2012 must apply a ‘flagging test’ to determine whether the ship qualifies for tonnage tax, HMRC explained