Autumn Statement 2015: George Osborne’s speech transcript in full including stamp duty, business rates and corporation tax announcements November 25, 2015 Mr Speaker, this Spending Review delivers on the commitment we made to the British people that we would put security first. To protect our economic security, by taking the difficult decisions to live within our means and bring down our debt. To protect our national security, by defending our country’s interests abroad and keeping our [...]
Autumn Statement 2015: George Osborne promises £450m extra for Government Digital Services to improve public services online November 25, 2015 George Osborne has promised an additional £450m for spending on government digital services to make it easier for the public to do things online. The additional funding comes amid wider cuts to the core spending of the Cabinet Office of 25 per cent. Digitising services, such as filing tax returns, has already saved as much as £1.7bn [...]
Autumn Statement 2015: HMRC corporate tax overreach risks Britain’s business-friendly reputation unless George Osborne acts November 24, 2015 Five years may not be very long in many contexts, but in that time the tax world has changed significantly. The coalition’s Corporate Tax Roadmap, published in November 2010, declared that it wanted to create “the most competitive corporate tax regime in the G20”. In doing so, it highlighted four key ways in which the [...]
UK’s anti-money laundering controls are not fit for purpose, allowing billions of pounds of dirty money to seep into the country every year November 23, 2015 The UK’s anti-money laundering (AML) safeguards are not fit for purpose and require a radical overhaul, a report released today has found. According to the study by Transparency International UK (TI-UK) , the current system, which involves 22 different organisations across a range of sectors having some degree of responsibility for supervising and enforcing the [...]
HMRC collects £3.5bn from investigations into big businesses’ underpaid corporation tax November 23, 2015 HMRC collected an extra £3.5bn in corporate tax from challenging businesses on their payments in the last tax year, according to figures from Pinsent Masons. The £3.5bn came from investigations into underpaid corporation tax carried out by HMRC’s Large Business Directorate, which oversees the tax compliance of the 2,100 largest and most complex UK businesses. The [...]
Rangers “big tax case”: Will HMRC now look at other football clubs’ payment structures? November 20, 2015 Earlier this month the Murray Group – owners of the now liquidated Rangers Football club – lost the third round of its battle with HM Revenue & Customs over whether payments made to an employee benefit trust (EBT), that were intended to benefit the families of players and certain of the club’s senior executives, should [...]
HMRC tax offices closures could actually cost the taxpayer November 19, 2015 Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ announcement that it plans to save £100m by closing 137 local offices will hit taxpayers hard and make dealing with the Revenue at a personal level almost impossible. HMRC’s failure to get anywhere close to meeting its published customer service standards or make any real impact in tackling non-compliance, avoidance [...]
Chancellor George Osborne agrees budget cuts with a further seven government departments ahead of the spending review November 17, 2015 Chancellor George Osborne has come to an agreement with seven more governmental departments on cutting the amount each spends. A series of cabinet ministers, including Iain Duncan Smith, have made a deal with Osborne, under which day-to-day spending will be cut by an average of 21 per cent by 2019-20, which is on average six per cent [...]
One in six employers feel their staff are still unclear about pension freedoms, more than six months after they came into force November 16, 2015 One in six employers have noticed staff are still scratching their heads over pension freedoms, despite the new rules having been in force since April, according to a study by Close Brothers Asset Management. However, some staff are getting the hang of the rules. In the survey of almost 900 UK employers, 21 per cent said [...]
UK pension freedoms could be costing people £104m, as they fail to shop around for the best annuity deal November 16, 2015 People who have purchased an annuity over the last six months without shopping around for the best deal are set to collectively lose out on £104m over the course of their retirement, according to figures released today by Retirement Advantage. The calculation was based on data collected for the first six months of pensions freedoms, [...]