HMRC published four sets of draft legislation and explanatory notes alongside last week’s Budget:
HMRC have published a reminder that the disclosure regime for avoidance schemes is extended with effect from 6 April to require the disclosure of inheritance tax arrangements that seek to avoid IHT charges associated with transfers of property into trust.
The government’s efforts to tackle tax avoidance are ‘quite understandable’ but evasion and other criminal activity have a ‘far greater’ impact than legal avoidance, tax experts said in response to a new paper setting out the government’s anti-avoidance strategy.
MPs have welcomed ‘good progress’ in HMRC’s investigation work but called for improved performance and strong leadership to boost low staff morale.
The European Commission has proposed an optional ‘one-stop-shop’ system allowing companies to consolidate all profits and losses arising across the EU and file a single tax return.
The UK should not have a general anti-avoidance rule, according to two thirds of respondents to a Tax Journal online survey. More than 300 of the 400 respondents did not agree that legal tax avoidance should be regarded as part of the ‘tax gap’.
An ‘aggressive’ tax avoidance scheme putting ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’ of tax at risk was blocked with effect from 9 March in response to a disclosure made to HMRC under the scheme disclosure regulations.
LITRG’s view on the PTSP from Robin Williamson
Richard Clarke and Jessica McLellan review recent HMRC activity, including the Managing Deliberate Defaulters scheme and the Plumbers Tax Safe Plan (PTSP)
The public will not wear the ‘overly aggressive pursuit of lower tax bills’, David Gauke told the Hundred Group of finance directors in a recent speech.