Archive for the ‘General, Private Client Tax’ Category

HMRC Crackdown Targets Online Traders and Private Tutors

Friday, July 1st, 2011
The crackdown on the ‘black economy’ by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is to be extended to those who trade online using eBay or similar sites, and those offering private tutoring.
 
With regard to the former, HMRC are said to be using a ‘web robot’ to identify targets. The latter are normally straightforward to identify through ads placed in newsagents’ windows, local newspapers and the like.
 
HMRC claim that their campaign against the black economy will yield £7 billion in extra tax by 2015.

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Belgium Authorities to Release Account Details

Friday, June 17th, 2011
15,000 Britons with bank accounts in Belgium will have their details
HMRC2
opened up to HM Revenue and Customs by 1 July according to an announcement made today.
 
The move is the latest in a series of agreements between fiscal authorities in Europe to trade information on bank accounts held by non-nationals.
 
Also released today was the news that the Spanish tax authorities are to investigate the UK chief of Santander, Ana Botin, for tax evasion relating to monies held in Swiss bank accounts.

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Half a Million Face Offshore Cash Probes

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

Hotel Pool 2HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) claim that they have been informed of half a million people who hold cash in offshore tax havens…indicating that the stashing of cash in low-tax areas is a pastime of the middle classes as well as the wealthy.

 
The discovery has led HRMC to increase their estimate of the potential tax yield to ‘billions of pounds’. The information has been obtained through a series of information-sharing agreements between HMRC and foreign tax authorities and includes information from banks and ‘whistleblowers’.
 
HMRC offered a series of amnesties for taxpayers to ‘come clean’ about such accounts in exchange for beneficial treatment by tax inspectors, but it would appear that their entreaties have been largely ignored.
 
Recently, a whistleblower based in Geneva gave HMRC the names of 7,000 UK customers who collectively hold some £13 billion in accounts in Switzerland.
 
The information received to date has led to many raids by HMRC officers and eight arrests.
 
A specialist unit is being set up by HMRC to investigate those with undeclared offshore assets and those who seem to have lifestyles which cannot be financed by their disclosed income.

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New Guidance on Transferable Nil-Rate Bands

Friday, May 13th, 2011

Cruise Ship 1There has, since its inception, been a great deal of confusion regarding the ‘double Inheritance Tax (IHT) nil rate band’ legislation – whereby the unused proportion of the IHT nil rate band of the first of a couple to die is passed to the second: this is termed the ‘transferable nil rate band’ (TRNB).

 
One of the problems stems from those cases in which the estate of the first deceased merely passed across to their spouse and the formal documentation relating to the estate was either not prepared or not retained.
 
HM Revenue and Customs have attempted to make the use of the TRNB simpler by issuing a new code of practice which allows an estate making use of a transferred TRNB to be an ‘excepted estate’ provided certain conditions are met.
 
In practice, this will simplify the administration of many estates. However, there are still conditions which may cause difficulties for many people, such as the conditions that the first deceased must have:
 
  • been domiciled for IHT purposes in the UK at the date of death; and
  • not have owned foreign assets (i.e. a holiday home) worth more than £100,000 at the date of death.
 
The guidance can be found at
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/ihtmanual/ihtm06024.htm
 

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Pension Provision Shortfall Continue

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

A recent poll shows that less than half of a sample of people who commute into London  save money by way of a pension.

 
One in five of the sample did not believe that pensions are a safe investment and one in seven believe that pensions are an inflexible form of saving.
 
With the state pension age set to keep creeping up and up as life expectancy increases (it moves to 66 in 2020), there is little sign that the yawning gap in the pension provision of many people is likely to be met, leaving millions facing greatly reduced living standards in old age.

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