The government’s new approach to making tax policy inevitably leads to an extended timetable for the introduction of new tax laws.
This government is adopting a more strategic approach to avoidance that gets to the root of the problem rather than treating the symptoms. That is the thrust of Tackling Tax Avoidance, released on Budget day.
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.
The Treasury is consulting on possible steps to accelerate the ‘rebalancing’ of the Northern Ireland economy through the tax system.
The main option is to allow Northern Ireland to vary corporation tax rates, the Treasury said, to enable it to attract and expand private investment.
William Watson identifies the missing piece of the jigsaw to simplify the tax code and improve certainty
Next week’s Finance Bill will include legislation to reduce the main rate of corporation tax to 26% from 1 April 2011 and 25% from 1 April 2012. The small profits rate will be reduced to 20%, as announced in the June 2010 Budget, from 1 April 2011.
The government will publish a tax information and impact note for tax and NIC policy changes at the point at which the policy design is final or near final, beginning with tomorrow's Budget, David Gauke said.
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.