SME Tax News

In Flix Innovations Ltd v HMRC [2015] TC04710, EIS relief was denied as a company's ordinary shares carried preferential rights on winding up.

In order for shares to qualify for tax relief under the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) they must meet a set of qualifying conditions. They must be unredeemable ordinary shares and, depending on the date of issue under section 173 ITA 2007, must not contain any preferential rights, including no present or future preferential right to the company's assets on its winding up. 

The following changes were announced to pensions:

The chancellor omitted to mention the majority of the new measures that the government has proposed for the 2016 Finance Bill when he presented his Autumn Statement last Wednesday. In this guide we fill in the details for SME owners and tax advisers.

In his 2015 Autumn Statement, the chancellor announced that there would be two changes to the qualification criteria for the government's Tax Free Childcare account which is being introduced in 2017.

Please note: further changes have been made to the scheme since the Autumn Statement announcement, see Tax-Free Childcare for the latest details.

The chancellor announced in his 2015 Autumn Statement that the government will not proceed with certain changes to working tax credits and child tax credits.

Anti-avoidance measures were introduced by Finance Act 2016 to:

• Enable the disposal value of plant and machinery to be amended where one of the main purposes of the transaction is to obtain a tax advantage by receiving a reduced balancing charge or increased allowance.
• Ensure that where a company takes over a lease from another person, and receives a tax deduction for payments made under that lease, that the company will always be charged to tax on any amount that it receives in return for taking over that lease.

This measure applies to transactions that take place on or after 25 November 2015 and affects businesses who: 

• Manipulate disposal values leading to increased capital allowances, or
• Receive non taxable consideration for agreeing to take over tax deductible lease payments.

The payment timings of Capital Gain Tax (CGT) on a disposal of residential property will change from April 2019 according to HMRC's Autumn Statement documents.

The chancellor announced in his Autumn Statement that the government will invest £1.3 billion in HMRC's new quarterly reporting tax revolution.

In his 2015 Autumn Statement the chancellor announced a new exemption from a loans to participators charge when loans are made by close companies to the trustees of charities.