Tax legislation

Readers may be forgiven for finding the recent rash of announcements by HMRC, regarding possible changes to tax legislation, rather confusing.

On 8th September, we were informed that the remaining sections of the March 2017 finance bill, that were deferred due to the May election, were back in circulation and being dealt with by the appropriate committees and debates. Eventually, they will find their way onto the statute books unless amended by the parliamentary processes.

Changes reintroduced include:

• Ability to reimburse employers for certain benefits and avoid a tax charge.
• A reduction in the money purchase pension allowance, once crystallised, from £10,000 to £4,000.
• A reduction in the tax-free dividend allowance, from £5,000 to £2,000; effective from 6 April 2018.

In all there are seventy-two clauses and eighteen schedules.

It was then announced the government will publish its next Budget on Wednesday 22 November 2017. The November Budget will include further legislation to introduce digitisation of business tax.

It will be interesting to see how the political realities – a much slimmer majority in parliament – affect the progress of these changes in the coming weeks.