The financial sector is ‘under-taxed’ and an EU-wide financial transaction tax would ensure that it makes a fair contribution at a time of fiscal consolidation in the Member States, according to the European Commission.
Tax experts who have been calling for a statutory definition of ‘residence’ for many years have welcomed proposed reforms but flagged a number of issues to be addressed.
Detailed proposals for reform of the controlled foreign companies regime do not reflect the government’s ‘high level aims’, according to the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
HMRC beat a hasty retreat on treaty anti-avoidance but it remains to be seen whether the OECD will back off from the ‘beneficial ownership’ debate, explains Helen Lethaby in this month's briefing
The tax gap was £35bn in 2009/10, according to HMRC’s estimate released today. The department has revised its £42bn estimate for the previous year to £39bn.
Corporate tax incentives for debt finance and ‘very low’ taxes on capital gains may have played a minor role in creating or facilitating the financial crisis, according to the Mirrlees review of the UK’s tax system.
The UK and the US are acutely aware of the need for competitive effective tax rates but, as Steve Edge and Willard Taylor explain, they achieve that result in different ways.
‘The Treasury should be held to account for a tax system that is “inefficient, overly complex and frequently unfair”, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said in a stinging critique of tax policy.’
Financial Times, 14 September 2011
The government's responses to recent tax consultations will be published ‘on or by’ 6 December, along with draft legislation to be included in Finance Bill 2012. George Osborne will deliver his autumn statement on the economy on 29 November.