ALLISON PLAGER reports three recent cases.
Care workers' expenses
Highlights from the House of Commons debates of the Finance Bill are reported by ALLISON PLAGER.
THE FLAT RATE VAT scheme was debated in the House of Commons. The clause (23) was largely welcomed by all sides. Mark Hoban was concerned that small businesses would feel obliged to calculate their VAT on a regular basis to check whether or not they were better off using the flat rate scheme.
The High Court overturned the Special Commissioners' decision and allowed the Revenue's appeal in Commissioners of Inland Revenue v Trustees of the Sema Group Pension Scheme.
The High Court decreed that the Revenue acted fairly in not allowing a widower a bereavement payment in R (on the application of Wilkinson) v Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
ALLISON PLAGER delves into a recent report on the administration of the tax system.
THE INLAND REVENUE collected £211.5 billion tax and National Insurance in the year 2000-01 according to the National Audit Office's Inland Revenue Appropriation Accounts 2000-01.
The High Court allowed the Revenue's appeal in Commissioners of Inland Revenue v Mallender and others (executors of Drury-Lowe, deceased).
Land charged for the purposes of a bank guarantee obtained by a Lloyd's underwriter was claimed as a business asset for the purposes of business property relief on his death. The Court disallowed it, saying that only the guarantee was relevant, not the asset that supported it.
ALLISON PLAGER reports the changes made by the Finance Act 2001 to the tax treatment of transfers of shares in life insurance products.
THE TAX TREATMENT of insurance contracts tends to inspire fear into those unused to dealing with them. In essence, insurance contracts are taxed according to whether or not they are qualifying and, as most policies taken out by taxpayers are qualifying, the general practitioner is unlikely to have to deal with non-qualifying contracts on a regular basis.
ALLISON PLAGER peruses a recent survey of information technology usage in accountancy practices.
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