At Autumn Statement 2013, the government announced that it would, following consultation, introduce a new requirement for taxpayers to pay disputed tax upfront where the avoidance scheme being used has been defeated in another party’s litigation through the courts. Tax avoidance scheme promoters must give HMRC information about schemes they promote under the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Scheme (DOTAS) rules. Anyone using such a scheme must declare to HMRC they are using a notified tax avoidance scheme. Following consultation, the Budget announced that the government intends to extend the new requirement for taxpayers to pay upfront any disputed tax associated with schemes covered by the DOTAS rules or counteracted under the General Anti Abuse Rule (GAAR). CIPP comment “Most individuals and businesses throughout the UK pay the tax they owe upfront.” This is not news to us as every time the government talk about this, they are talking about the persistent minority who seek to avoid their responsibilities, preventing the tax system from raising revenue fairly and imposing costs on all taxpayers. The Chancellor also said registered tax avoidance schemes had fallen by half in the past year. Also mentioned was an increase to HMRC's budget to help tackle non-compliance and give them modern powers to collect debts from bank accounts. This will be the subject of future consultation and we will be looking at the detail on this very closely. Personal allowances for non-residents To ensure the UK personal allowance remains well targeted, the government intends to consult on whether and how the allowance could be restricted to UK residents and those living overseas who have strong economic connections in the UK, as is the case in many other countries, including most of the EU. Capital Gains Tax (CGT): non-residents and UK residential property As announced in Autumn Statement 2013, legislation will be introduced to charge CGT on future gains made by non-residents disposing of UK residential property. A consultation on how best to produce the charge will be published shortly after Budget. These changes will have effect from April 2015. Legislation will be detailed in the Finance Bill 2015. Tax-Free Childcare As previously announced this week, the government has just published their consultation response to the design and operation of the new Tax-Free Childcare scheme due to launch in autumn 2015. This was highlighted again in the budget due to one of the changes being an increase in tax-free childcare costs from £1,200 to £2,000 per child per year. CIPP comment The CIPP are extremely pleased that the government has removed an additional burden by allowing eligibility for all children up the age of 12 from the outset, rather than looking to implement a staggered approach. Further information on tax evasion and avoidance
You can read more detail on the consultation response through the CIPP news pages .
CIPP Policy News Journal
16/04/2014, Page 51 of 519
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