News

Taxpayers can now sign up online for the new tax break for married couples and people in civil partnerships.

Web users can register at any point in the tax year and still receive the full benefit of the relief, which takes effect from April.

It permits a person who does not pay tax to transfer up to £1,060 of his or her personal allowance to a spouse or civil partner. Couples can claim the relief if all the following conditions apply.

The European Commission (EC) has unveiled its agenda to combat avoidance and aggressive tax planning, with a package of measure to increase tax transparency to be announced next month.

A key objective of the agenda is to ensure that companies are taxed where their economic activities generating the profits are performed, commissioners agreed at the first orientation debate on possible actions to ensure a more transparent approach to taxation in the European Union (EU).

The European Parliament is set to set up a special parliamentary committee to look into European Union member states’ tax rulings and “other measures similar in nature or effect”, and to make recommendations for the future.

The committee was agreed upon last week in the wake of a series of investigations by the European Commission (EC) into tax rulings for multinational companies in Luxembourg, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Employers will not incur penalties for delays of up to three days in filing PAYE information, HMRC have confirmed.

There will be no changes to the submission deadlines, and employers with fewer than 50 employees will still be subject to late-filing fines from 6 March. But late-payment sanctions will be reviewed on a risk-assessed basis, rather than issued automatically.

The Revenue intends to next month close about 15,000 PAYE schemes that have not made a report since April 2013 and appear to have ceased, in an effort yo prevent unnecessary penalties being issued.

IR35

The HMRC-led IR35 forum has published its final administration review.

GOV.uk

HMRC have followed up their move to GOV.uk with a blog entry on how their What’s New section will work on the platform.

Many countries are overhauling their corporate tax rules ahead of the final recommendations from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), according to a report from big four accountancy EY.

Revenue addresses evasion controversy

HMRC’s newly published Revenue & Customs Brief 2 (2015) (RCB 2/15) provides further guidance on the effect of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Skandia America Corporation (USA), filial Sverige (C-7/13) on the UK VAT grouping provisions.

Skandia America Corporation was incorporated in the United States. The business had a branch in Sweden that became part of a Swedish VAT group. The local tax authority viewed services provided by Skandia America to its Swedish branch as taxable transactions.

Penalties

HMRC are consulting on making changes to their penalties regime, which could differentiate between taxpayers who deliberately fail to meet deadlines and those who make occasional errors. Responses should be emailed no later than 11 May

Record submissions

A record 8.76m self assessment returns (85.5%) were filed online this tax year, compared with 8.48m in the previous 12 months, according to Revenue figures.

HMRC have published updated guidance on the general anti-abuse rule (GAAR), effective from 30 January 2015.

The new information replaces the 15 April 2013 version and includes documents setting out the changes, with updated links and statutory references and corrections to typographical. Substantial alterations include:

Audit office praises department’s approach to recommendations

Videos

HMRC have created educational videos on their YouTube channel, and are hosting free, hour-long webinars over the next few weeks. There is also an online course on resolving disputes through reviews and appeals.

Manuals

HMRC have published two new manuals: Other Non-Statutory Clearance Guidance and Video Games Development Company Tax Relief.