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BLOG: Where are you on Pillar Two? Advisers and businesses would be wise not to hold out for finality and certainty before engaging with these highly complex and evolving rules. The first instalment of the UK legislation to implement Pillar Two was enacted in July as Part 3 (multinational...
Tax and the City Review for September 2023 In their latest Tax and the City article, Mike Lane and Zoe Andrews consider two Upper Tribunal decisions: JTI Acquisitions, on the application of the unallowable purpose rule, and Hotel La Tour on the recoverability of input VAT on advisers’ fees...
BLOG: Has the UK just abolished its 1.5% stamp duty charge? "I see the 1.5% is being removed!” was the subject line of a client e-mail received early last Thursday afternoon in light of HMRC’s latest announcement. To which the answer is “not quite!”
BLOG: Looking at the bigger picture: CGT planning and the purpose test in the reorganisation rules If we imagine a Venn diagram of two overlapping circles, A and B, and call the overlapping area C, what can we say about the individual areas? Quite clearly, we can say that C forms part of both A and B. But what about the relationship between A and B?...
BLOG: No joy for JTI: but whose purposes are unallowable? For UK tax practitioners who are feeling bereft after binge-watching the final season of Succession, the ongoing series of “unallowable purpose” cases offers plotlines that are, if admittedly less glossy, no less intriguing.
BLOG: Purpose tests in anti-abuse or anti-avoidance provisions in the UK In addition to the general anti-abuse rule (GAAR), numerous purpose tests are built into the UK tax code. Every time a new set of tax rules is introduced, they tend to be accompanied by at least one targeted anti-avoidance rule (TAAR), and these TAARs...
BLOG: Purpose tests in anti-abuse or anti-avoidance provisions: perspectives across Europe In order to carry out a transaction, taxpayers are generally free to choose between different structures and tax regimes, and to choose the structure or regime which produces the lowest tax burden. But their freedom is constrained by anti-abuse rules or...
BLOG: Proposals for a single R&D tax regime: a death knell for the SME regime? Last week, HM Treasury released its Summary of Responses document to the consultation published earlier this year seeking views on the design of a single research and development (R&D) tax relief regime – or, in other words, the collapsing of...
BLOG: Beneficial ownership from a UK perspective Beneficial ownership (or beneficial entitlement) concepts are used across the UK tax code in relation to domestic provisions as well as in the application of double tax treaties. Since the Court of Appeal’s decision in Indofood in 2006, the majority view...
BLOG: Beneficial ownership: perspectives across Europe Across a number of European jurisdictions, relief from withholding tax may be denied where the recipient of a dividend, interest or royalty payment is not also the beneficial owner of the relevant payment. The test for determining whether the recipient...
Tax and the City Review for July 2023 In their latest Tax and the City article, Mike Lane and Zoe Andrews consider two recent Court of Appeal decisions: Royal Bank of Canada on the application of the UK/Canada double tax treaty, and Civic Environmental Systems Ltd on the effect of an increase...
Beneficial entitlement in Hargreaves: is Indofood now part of UK domestic law? In the recent Hargreaves judgment, the Upper Tribunal held that a UK company was not beneficially entitled to interest when it was obliged to pay similar sums to a non-UK entity. The decision effectively seeks to import the international fiscal meaning of...
The Transfer Pricing Law Review - 7th edition - United Kingdom chapter Preface by Steve Edge and Dominic Robertson for the seventh edition of The Transfer Pricing Law Review. UK chapter by Steve Edge, Dominic Robertson and Tom Gilliver.
BLOG: Has the UK just reintroduced its 1.5% stamp duty charge on share issues? The short version: it seems that it has, with effect from 1 January 2024, as a result of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill receiving Royal Assent on 29 June 2023. What is currently unclear is whether that is a deliberate policy choice or an...
BLOG: Transfer pricing, permanent establishment and diverted profits tax reform The changes proposed by the UK government in its consultation on the reform of the transfer pricing, permanent establishment and diverted profits tax legislation are intended to ensure equal treatment between multinationals and other enterprises, simplify...