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.
Wealthy homebuyers have already found ‘loopholes’ to avoid paying the new top rate of stamp duty land tax, the Financial Times reported at the weekend.
The Finance Bill will amend the SDLT rules on a transfer of rights (or sub-sale) ‘so that the grant or assignment of an option cannot be a transfer of rights’.
Putting homes into companies to avoid stamp duty is ‘completely
Toby Price and Ginny Offord explain why the SDLT rules contain a structural bias in favour of leveraging up leases over reducing leverage.
‘The richest home buyers in Britain are costing the country as much as £1bn a year in lost stamp duty on house sales. Research by The Times shows that wealthy British and foreign buyers of one in three houses sold for more than £1m are avoiding the 5% stamp duty.’
HMRC has published additional guidance on completion of the stamp duty land tax return.
Marc Selby reviews HMRC's answers to six questions on the law and practice of SDLT. Comments on questions concerning surrenders and re-grants of leases and on the time limit for amending land transaction returns reveal clear differences between the views of HMRC and the STPG.
Lakshmi Narain outlines the key tax issues