The study group examining the case for a general anti-avoidance rule was set to report to the government by 31 October.
‘A controversial tax deal between Goldman Sachs and HM Revenue & Customs, which saw the investment bank agree a settlement that reportedly saved it millions of pounds in interest, could face a challenge in the High Court.
David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said that to remove any doubt about a tax avoidance scheme's effectiveness, legislation had been changed in relation to the following numbers of disclosed schemes since 2005:
Smaller companies are to be offered HMRC support and guidance on making claims to tax relief for the costs of research and development, under a new ‘voluntary advance assurance' pilot.
A 200-strong team of investigators and specialists is targeting ‘wealthy tax cheats’ who own property abroad, HMRC said. Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, announced the creation of the ‘affluent’ unit at the recent Liberal Democrat conference.
The OECD’s Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes has adopted a progress report to the G20 based on 59 peer reviews.
Governments have now signed more than 700 agreements to exchange tax information, said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría.
HMRC has published further details of a forum to help the tax agent community to ‘steer the development’ of HMRC's agent strategy and the associated ‘change’ programme.
A petition calling for government action to ‘identify those avoiding and evading tax’ has attracted almost 5,000 signatures.
Guidance for taxpayers who are about to be told that they owe tax for 2010/11 has been published by the CIOT’s Low Incomes Tax Reform Group.