Ward Williams Group: Tax Highlights from the 2013 Autumn Statement

Personal Tax Highlights

Confirmation that the income tax personal allowance will increase to £10,000 from April 2014.
From 2015-16 married couples and civil partners will be able to transfer £1,000 of their income tax personal allowance to their spouse where neither is a higher rate taxpayer.
Employer NI contributions will be abolished for under 21 year olds with earnings below the upper earnings limit with effect from April 2015.
From April 2015 non-residents disposing of UK residential property will be subject to capital gains tax.
A reduction in the capital gains tax private residence relief final period exemption from 36 months to 18 months to reduce the incentive for those with multiple homes to exploit the rules.
A scheme to allow current pensioners, and those who reach State Pension age before the introduction of the new single tier pension, an option to top up their Additional State Pension through a new class of voluntary National Insurance contributions .
Future changes to State Pension Age, with a guiding principle that people should expect to spend, on average, up to a third of their adult life in receipt of the State Pension. This is likely to mean that the increase in State Pension age to 68 could come forward to the mid 2030s, and the State Pension age could increase further to 69 by the late 2040s.

Business Tax Highlights

With immediate effect, new measures have been introduced to counter manipulation of profit and loss allocations within ‘mixed membership’ partnerships.
From April 2014, measures will be introduced to counter arrangements where partnership losses are reallocated in order to achieve an overall tax advantage.
The associated companies rules will be replaced with simpler rules based on 51% group membership in April 2015 when the main rate and small profits rate of corporation tax are unified at 20%.
The rules restricting the availability of corporation tax losses when a company changes ownership will be relaxed.
From 6 April 2014 the government will introduce legislation to ensure individuals make payments for private use of a company car or van in the relevant tax year. Measures will also be introduced to ensure that where an employer leases a car to an employee, the benefit is taxed as a car benefit rather than as employment earnings.

Measures to Tackle Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Several measures were introduced to clamp down further on tax evasion, avoidance and aggressive tax planning, including:
From April 2014, a strengthening of existing legislation which prevents employment intermediaries from disguising employment as self-employment to avoid tax.
Legislation will be introduced to require taxpayers using avoidance schemes that have already been defeated in the courts to pay the tax they are trying to avoid upfront.
A new information disclosure and penalty regime for high risk promoters of avoidance schemes will be introduced. Clients of these will also be required to identify themselves to HMRC.

…and of course we can’t leave out

Ward Williams Group