The Budget 2015
Other Matters
Digital tax accounts
The government has announced some initiatives to 'transform the tax system over the next Parliament' by introducing digital tax accounts and removing the need for annual tax returns. A digital tax account will enable individuals and small businesses to see and manage their tax affairs online. As a first step, the government will:
- publish a roadmap later this year setting out the policy and administrative changes needed to implement this reform
- introduce digital tax accounts for five million small businesses and the ten million individuals by early 2016.
Gift Aid
It is proposed to increase the annual donation amount which can be claimed through the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme to £8,000. This will allow charities and Community Amateur Sports Clubs to claim Gift Aid style top-up payments of up to £2,000 a year, with effect from April 2016.
VAT help for certain charities
As announced at Autumn Statement 2014 hospice, search and rescue and air ambulance charities will be eligible for VAT refunds from 1 April 2015. The Chancellor has now announced that blood bike charities will also be included.
Tax evasion
The government will toughen sanctions for those who evade tax by closing early the existing disclosure facilities. For example the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility will close at the end of 2015, instead of April 2016. A tougher 'last chance' disclosure facility will be offered between 2016 and mid-2017, with penalties of at least 30% on top of tax owed and interest and with no immunity from criminal prosecutions in appropriate cases.
Tax avoidance
The government will introduce tougher measures for those who persistently enter into tax avoidance schemes that fail, and will develop further measures to publish the names of such avoiders and to tackle avoiders who repeatedly abuse reliefs.
Specific anti-avoidance measures
- The government will introduce legislation, effective from 18 March 2015, to prevent companies from obtaining a tax advantage by entering contrived arrangements to turn historic tax losses of restricted use into more versatile in-year deductions.
- Measures will be introduced to prevent partly exempt VAT businesses taking account of foreign branches when calculating how much VAT on overhead costs they can reclaim in the UK. This will take effect from 1 August 2015.
- The government will introduce legislation, with effect from 26 February 2015, to clarify the effect of capital allowances anti-avoidance rules where there are transactions between connected parties or sale and leaseback transactions.