In response to the COVID-19 crisis HMRC has updated its guidance on the process for getting documents stamped and paying the stamp duty, including that:
There has been considerable discussion about the effect that the travel restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic might have on the tax residence of companies, particularly where directors are stuck in a different jurisdiction and cannot attend board meetings as they would in normal circumstances.
On 7 April, HMRC updated
Introduction
In these testing times the ramifications of COVID-19 continue to be felt in every area of personal and corporate life. With lockdowns announced around the world, including in the UK on 23 March 2020, travel has been severely curtailed and business practices are having to change accordingly. Below we discuss what this means for determining the tax residency of companies and individuals.
Earlier this evening (26 March 2020) the UK Chancellor announced the new Self-Employed Income Support Scheme to help the self-employed face the economic hardship wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Below are the key points:
Earlier this evening the UK Chancellor announced an economic intervention which is “unprecedented in the history of the British state” with measures to support the United Kingdom economy in the midst of COVID-19. Below are the key measures he announced for businesses:
Last night (17 March 2020) the UK’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Steve Barclay, announced in the House of Commons that the government is postponing the implementation of the changes to the application of the off payroll working tax rules to private sector clients (IR35) from 6 April 2020 to
As we reported in our Tax Talks blog of 8 January, the Government has carried out a review of the implementation of the changes to the private sector IR35 rules. This review has now completed with the Government confirming on 27 February that the extension of the IR35 rules to
There has been much talk recently about “review and reform” (or abolition) of entrepreneurs’ relief. This seems to have moved a step closer this week with Boris Johnson stating that the Treasury are “fulminating” against it on the basis that it made “staggeringly rich” people “even more staggeringly rich”. The debate about this was kicked off last November with an IFS study highlighting that the benefits of the relief were concentrated among the wealthy and Edward Troup, former head of HMRC, saying that it was costing £2bn a year in tax while providing “no incentive for real entrepreneurship”.
In the Finance Act 2018, the UK Government enacted a number of changes to the information required in partnership returns that raised the concern of undue and impracticable administrative burden being imposed on UK investment fund partnerships.
The changes covered a number of areas, including requiring a UK partnership that had partnerships amongst its partners and could not identify all of its “indirect partners” to provide computation statements on four bases covering UK resident individuals and companies and non-UK resident individuals and companies. Given that many fund partnerships have other partnerships amongst their investors and that it is likely to be difficult (if possible) to obtain information on all indirect partners, this change will increase the return information that must be provided to HM Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”).
As announced by the Chancellor in the run up to the recent General Election, the Government is launching a review into the implementation of the changes to the IR35 rules for private sector workers scheduled to be introduced on 6 April.
We have reported on the changes to the IR35