Wednesday was Legislation Day 'L-day' when the government published some of the draft legislation and consultations that will form Finance Bill 2022-23. Key highlights include measures to relax the CGT rules for divorcing couples, and for LLPs and Scottish partnerships, the tax treatment of farmers' Lump Sum exit schemes, reforms to net pay pensions, tax relief on homes for Ukraine and changes to Research & Development relief.
SME Tax News
HMRC’s ‘L-day’ policy paper 'New tax checks for licence renewal applications in Scotland and Northern Ireland' proposes that the existing tax checks for taxi and scrap metal licence renewal which apply in England and Wales will be extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
As part of ‘L-day 2022’, HMRC has published a policy paper and draft legislation covering temporary reliefs from the Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings (ATED) charge and the 15% Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) rate, where a dwelling is made available under the Homes for Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme. This also deals with making payments by the government to those taking in refugees tax-free.
HMRC have released a policy paper, 'Capital Gains Tax: Allowing relief on disposals of joint interests in land and private residences for limited liability partnerships and Scottish partnerships'. This seeks to ensure that these entities can claim the same reliefs as other partnerships.
In July 2022, the government has published draft legislation as part of Finance Bill 2022-23, which sets out the planned reforms of the Research & Development (R&D) Tax Relief. As previously announced, the relief will be expanded to cover a wider range of expenditure and relief will be restricted in part to focus more on rewarding UK expenditure.
The government has published proposals 'Pensions: relief relating to net pay arrangements' that allow HMRC to make a top-up for payments to lower-paid taxpayers who are within net-pay pension arrangements.
HMRC have opened a new consultation ‘Digitalising Business Rates: connecting business rates and tax data’. The aim is to join up tax and business rates data to improve compliance, better target policy, and enable businesses to better understand and review their tax liabilities by having them all in one place.
As part of ‘L-day 2022’, HMRC have published a policy paper and draft legislation to clarify the tax treatment of payments received under the Lump Sum Exit Scheme for farmers.
HMRC's 'L-day' policy paper, 'Capital Gains Tax: separation and divorce', proposes to extend the time limits for transferring assets at no-gain no loss between separating partners from the year of separation to the three following years, or, it will be unlimited if part of a formal divorce agreement.
Following a call for evidence, the government has decided not to move ahead with proposed changes to 'Income Tax Self Assessment (ITSA) registration for the self-employed and landlords'. Making taxpayers register early for taxes is likely to cause more problems than it would solve.