Child benefit claw back may be unenforceable...

Take a look at the article posted to the Wall Street Journal blog, of all places, that opens up an interesting debate on the published, Coalition intent to claw back child benefit from higher rate families. Click on the title to read the full article...

Swiss bank accounts!

It would seem that the powers that be are on the brink of a remarkable climb down in their proposed fishing expedition to find out which UK nationals have Swiss bank accounts, determine the interest missing from their UK return and hammer them for tax, penalties and interest.

In a nutshell:

1. The UK will grant a complete tax amnesty to holders of Swiss acounts - no tax to pay on interest credited.
2. In future the Swiss authorities will have the power to determine and levy a withholding tax on interest credited to UK nationals. I assume the Revenue will stay in Switzerland?

In other words it would appear that the UK has just done the following:

1. Granted Switzerland the right to set the effective higher rate of tax on investment income in the UK;
2. Granted Swiss banks an everlasting competitive advantage over UK banks – because it will pay all higher rate tax payers to bank in Switzerland henceforth;
3. Denied the UK tax authority the right to make enquiries of their own choosing about the tax affairs of a British person – the Swiss now being granted the right to decide how many enquiries may be made and whether they are appropriate or not.

Which sort of rankles when you consider, for example, the reduction in tax relief in the UK for pension contributions next year, et al...

CIOT discussion, notification of tax schemes

Came across the following comments as part of a CIOT article on IHT avoidance crackdown:

"Following consultation, the March 2010 budget announced a package of five measures to strengthen and improve the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) regime. Briefly these measures are:

• A new 'trigger point ' for the disclosure of actively marketed schemes – the point at which a promoter first communicates information (including information about the expected tax advantage) about a substantially designed scheme to a third party with a view to obtaining clients for that scheme;
• An information power which gives HMRC the power to require a scheme 'introducer' (an intermediary whose function is to introduce clients to the promoter) to identify the promoter;
• Increased penalties for failure to comply with a disclosure obligation;
• A new requirement for promoters to provide HMRC with periodic information about clients who implement a notifiable scheme; and
• Revised and extended 'hallmarks' (descriptions of schemes requiring disclosure).

Scary stuff...

Junior ISA'a announced

A new tax-free savings account for under 18's is to replace the scrapped child trust fund (CTF) scheme.

The Treasury said the Junior ISA would be available from autumn 2011. As with the adult ISA the Government will not contribute and there will be an annual cap on the amount that can be paid in - details to be announced.

R & D Relief - expert support

This week I sat down to write the UKtaxworld newsletter for November and decided to include an article on R & D Relief. In doing so I realised that I had an ambivalent attitude to the topic. Firstly it's an incredible opportunity to provide much needed funds to clients involved in R & D (especially the surrender of the Relief for the 14% tax credit if losses are created and cannot be otherwise utilised). Secondly it is a rather complex application process! Firms who have clients that may benefit from the relief, and do not have time, resources or skills to deal with the application in house, could consider a joint venture approach. Click on the title of this posting and contact Mark Evans or his partner at R & D Tax and Grants Ltd. And if you remember mention that you have made contact via this blog.

iXBRL accounts and signatures

HMRC have confirmed that accounts submitted by iXBRL are only required to have a typed signature. The typed signature should mirror a signed copy that needs to be keep on file to demonstate compliance with Companies Acts; there is no HMRC requirement to submit accounts with "wet signatures".

Losses carryback deadline approaching

The temporary extension of trading loss carry back, to three years, ends 23 November 2010. s23 and schd 6 FA 2009. The relief applies to losses incurred in accounting periods ending between 24 November 2008 and 23 November 2010.

Under used resource - your staff!

I have recently added a handout to the Landmark Resource Centre that will have your staff lining up to help develop your practice. Click on the title of this posting, login to our Resource Centre and download the document with my compliments.

64-8 Warning...

If you advise client's on Tax Credits issues you may want to look out your 64-8. Old copies of the form do not have a check box to authorise contact for tax credit purposes. If your form does not authorise you will need to submit a second, supplementary form. As if you did not have enough to do!! Click on title of this posting to download new form 64-8.