UK and International Tax news

Tax Administration And Maintenance Day

Thursday 2nd December 2021

The government has issued an update to its Tax Administration Strategy, originally announced in July 2020, in its Tax Administration and Maintenance command paper.

In July 2020, the government set out its 10 year tax administration strategy, ‘Building a trusted, modern tax administration system’.  This aimed to modernise the tax administration framework, make better use of real-time and third-party information, and improve the experience for taxpayers and businesses, reducing the tax gap and increasing resilience.

The command paper outlines steps the government is taking to progress this strategy
further and ensure the tax system continues to modernise and reflect the government’s wider priorities. These include measures to simplify the tax system, streamline the administration of trusts with negligible levels of interest income, as well as the outcome of a review of the Office of Tax Simplification and responses to two OTS reports on Capital Gains Tax and Inheritance Tax.

In response to the OTS’s second report on CGT, the government has considered the OTS’s 14 recommendations. It has announced it will accept five of these, will keep five under review and has rejected four. Of the five accepted are the reporting and payment of CGT into the Single Customer Account which should become a central hub for reporting and storing CGT data, the operation of the PRR, and extending the time limit for making CGT returns and payment of CGT to 60 days (as announced in the Autumn Budget).

With regard to the OTS’s review of the design of IHT, the government has decided not to proceed with any changes at this point in time, in line with previous responses to OTS’s reviews of the administration of IHT. In particular, the government has stated that any changes to reliefs and the regime for lifetime gifts must be considered in the wider context and, specifically, the rebuilding of public finances.

 

If you would like further details on the above, please contact Keith Rushen on 0207 486 2378.

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