News

The Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) is seeking tax experts’ views of plans to allow HMRC access to taxpayers’ bank accounts.

An online survey from the AAT aims to establish the strength of feeling among industry professionals about the controversial direct recovery of debt (DRD) proposals, against which Taxation is campaigning.

The UK is the first of 44 countries to commit formally to the new country-by-country reporting template proposed last week by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The move will improve transparency and help identify risks for tax avoidance, claimed financial secretary to the Treasury David Gauke.

He added, “In time, improved transparency between business and tax authorities will help developing countries in dealing with compliance, as they often lack the capacity to collect information themselves.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has revealed the opening strategies of its much-anticipated action plan for a coordinated international fight against tax avoidance by multinational enterprises.

FATCA definitions

HMRC have produced a list of the material changes made to their Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) guidance in the August update.

Spacecraft

HMRC have published a draft statutory instrument and tax information and impact note amending Finance Act 1994 Sch 7A to introduce an insurance premium tax exemption for certain insurance contracts for spacecraft.

HMRC has published further guidance on changes to rules for offshore employment intermediaries with workers on the UK continental shelf.

The new tax regulations apply the obligation for secondary National Insurance (NI) on either:

Gibraltar and the Isle of Man have fallen into line with the rules for UK’s new gambling taxes, which will come into force on 1 December.

A business with a liability to general betting duty (GBD), pool betting duty (PBD) or remote gaming duty (RGD) and which is not in a group will, in most cases, need to appoint a representative in the UK if the firm is based outside the EU.

The UK’s smallest employers have been granted a temporary stay of penalties for late-filed PAYE returns, as all other firms face a new system of financial sanctions

The real-time information regime of automated in-year fines begins on 6 October and will affect all businesses except those with fewer than 50 members of staff, which will not be subject to charges until 6 March 2015.

Government contracts

HMRC and Cabinet Office have undertaken the review of the tax and procurement policy that came into effect on 1 April. The review explored whether the policy is having the intended effect of encouraging tax compliance from government suppliers. It found that of the 65 bids applying for central government contracts of £5m or more, one bidder failed the overriding mandatory procurement test.

The taxman has moved to ease red tape associated with the heritage property exemption for archives and undertakings under IHTA 1984, s 31(1)(a) and s 31(1)(aa).

An undertaking is expected to contain acceptable proposals for open public access – but the arrangements may need to be updated frequently unless the objects or collections are on long-term loan to a museum or gallery, or are in a property that is regularly open to the public.

HMRC’s have moved all of their self assessment (SA) guidance to the GOV.UK domain, as part of the ongoing migration of information from the Revenue’s own site.

The department has pledge to “make sure nothing gets lost during this transition”, and bookmarked links will automatically redirect to a page on either the government web hub or, in cases of outdated details, the National Archives site.

HMRC call centres provide satisfactory service to the majority of users, according to research by the tax department, with 80% of respondents rating their experience as either “very good” or “fairly good”.

The study also found that the Revenue’s helpline was a better-than-expected service for around two-fifths of taxpayers, and in line with expectations for almost half.

Bus and rail operator Go-Ahead granted Fair Tax Mark