Tax and Accounting Focus

Tuesday May 2017

The PM’s surprise announcement of a ‘snap’ General Election last month may suit politics, but the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) had already warned it was unlikely to suit good tax policy making. 

The government has now deleted 72 out of 135 clauses, and 18 out of 29 schedules – leaving just 140 pages out of the original 762, for approval ahead of the General Election.

What’s ‘out’ includes:

Making Tax Digital – provisions for digital reporting and record keeping;
All corporation tax sections, including:
New regime for losses, and corresponding anti-avoidance provisions;
Corporate interest restriction;
Substantial shareholdings exemption.
Deemed domicile provisions;
Restriction of dividend ‘allowance’ to £2,000;
Calculation of profits of trades and property businesses;
New trading and property allowances;
All investment relief provisions – EIS, SEIS, VCT, social, and business investment reliefs;
Restriction to money purchase annual allowance.

What remains includes:

Income tax – rates, bands, etc, for 2017/18;
Corporation tax for FY 2017;
Intermediaries (‘IR35’) and the public sector;
Overseas pensions changes;
Abolition of employee shareholder regime;
Disguised remuneration – income provided through third parties;
Taxation of salary sacrifice arrangements;
IPT rates and anti-forestalling;
Alcohol and tobacco products duties;
Soft drinks industry levy.

Of course, the provisions may simply be resurrected in the likely Summer Budget after the General Election. (Why have only one fiscal event a year, when you can have three?) It may be, however, that the implementation date for at least some of the provisions will have to be postponed.

Article from Lee Sharpe ATT CTA, Bloomsbury Professional Online.

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