The new Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government has just published the text of the Coalition Agreement made between the parties. Should you wish you may view this via the link below. The agreement states that it is the intention of the new government to increase the rate of Capital Gains Tax (“CGT”) for “non business assets”. [...]
Before the recent election all the three main parties were saying that they “had no plans to increase or extend VAT”. In fact the Labour Party actually ruled it out, but then they knew full well that the chance of them being in power, even with Lib Dem support, was fairly negligible. So it proved. [...]
I was talking to an Independent Financial Advisor a couple of days ago and in conversation asked him how he was getting on winding up the estate of a mutual client who died about 18 months ago. “Fine”, he said, “but it looks like we have paid too much Inheritance Tax on the house” – [...]
Just over a year ago I wrote about the visit to the Isle of Man undertaken by Vince Cable, then Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor who today was appointed Secretary of State for Business and Banking in the new Conservative – Liberal cabinet. Despite having been a stern critic of the island, calling it a tax [...]
One thing that can be clearly seen amid all the arguments over the status of Lord Ashcroft is that neither the press nor the politicians really understand the difference between someone being resident in the UK or being domiciled in the UK. It is rather painful to listen to the claim and counterclaim of so [...]
This is the shocking verdict which the authors of a new report, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, have come to following an in depth study into tax related compliance and administration costs which fall on UK businesses. The report also reveals that the average Finance Act in the 2000s has been three times [...]
To try and deal with some of the economic problems encountered last year when Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” economy collapsed in chaos, the Irish Government introduced a tax holiday for companies which commenced trading during 2009 under which, subject to certain conditions, they would pay no tax for a three year period. As things have not [...]
Benjamin Franklin said, “In this life nothing is certain but death and taxes”. When anyone who is resident or domiciled in the UK dies those they leave behind will find that HMRC will want a slice of the dead person’s estate – their money, house, possession etc. This tax used to be called Death Duties [...]
There has long been a common misconception that the payment of fees to non-executive directors can be made without having to account for tax and National Insurance (NI) by way of the PAYE system. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Directors, non-executive or otherwise, are considered to be “officeholders” by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) [...]
Any business can claim tax allowances, called capital allowances, on certain purchases or investments. This results in a reduction in the business tax bill – which can’t be bad. In general capital allowances are available on plant and machinery, buildings – including converting space above commercial premises to flats for renting – and research and [...]
I’ve suddenly had a lot of people contact me to ask the above question regarding the tax free ISA (Individual Savings Account) products that are available to UK taxpayers. This is probably due to changes that came in last month. If you don’t know what an ISA is then have a look at this earlier article. [...]
I attended a very interesting meeting last night organised by the Isle of Man Junior Chamber of Commerce (“JCC”) at the Hilton Hotel. A packed audience was addressed by Chief Minister Tony Brown on the subject of the recent change to the VAT agreement the island has with the UK. This change is likely to [...]
It has long been suspected that there is widespread under collection of VAT throughout the European Union. But until now no one realised just how big the figures were. Talk about pouring cash down the toilet! There are a number of reasons for the shortfall some relating to systematic fraud (such as “carousel fraud” on [...]
When I trained as a tax accountant many years ago there was a clear understanding that my duty was to my client and whilst I should not collude in illegal tax evasion or financial irregularity I owed no duty to “rat” on clients to the authorities. Indeed it was always accepted that anything told to [...]
“Transfer pricing” is an increasingly important and contentious area of international tax law. This is because so much of modern world trade involves the transfer of goods, intangibles or services within multinational enterprises (MNEs) – groups of companies or related businesses based in 2 or more countries. Such international trade offers scope for an MNE [...]
On his 2008 Presidential campaign trail, Barack Obama made his hostility toward “offshore” jurisdictions very clear: “There’s a building in the Cayman Islands that houses supposedly 12,000 U.S.-based corporations. That’s either the biggest building in the world or the biggest tax scam in the world, and we know which one it is.” I know that [...]
HM Revenue & Customs are facing a flood of legal claims that will blow another massive hole in the public finances. In the past few weeks thousands of High Court claims have been lodges by companies and local councils relating to millions of pounds of interest wrongly charged by HMRC. When HMRC makes a repayment [...]
Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) are convinced that there is widespread tax avoidance in the construction industry and have recently issued a consultation paper outlining their proposals for tackling the problem – proposals which are likely to result in a substantially higher tax burden for many genuinely self-employed workers as well as more red [...]
Back in April of this year Alistair Darling slipped a shock announcement in the small print of his Budget statement. I reported these in a previous post UK Budget Bombshell for Second Home Owners. You should read the earlier post for full details but basically Mr Darling announced that with effect from April 2010, the [...]
The controversial tax which was introduced by Gordon Brown shortly after he became Chancellor has proven to cost far more to administer than the cash it has raised. Gordon Brown has long had the typical socialist view of business owners which sees them all as crooks only concerned with paying as little tax as possible. Tax [...]
