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31 January 2001
Revenue press releases
Crime fighters
The Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise are to have a statutory power to disclose information to the police and other law enforcers to aid their criminal investigations.
The proposals in the Criminal Justice and Police Bill published on Friday 19 January give the Revenue and Customs the power to disclose otherwise confidential information for the purpose of current or future criminal investigations or criminal proceedings before the courts, in the United Kingdom or overseas.
Crime fighters
The Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise are to have a statutory power to disclose information to the police and other law enforcers to aid their criminal investigations.
The proposals in the Criminal Justice and Police Bill published on Friday 19 January give the Revenue and Customs the power to disclose otherwise confidential information for the purpose of current or future criminal investigations or criminal proceedings before the courts, in the United Kingdom or overseas.
Revenue press releases
Crime fighters
The Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise are to have a statutory power to disclose information to the police and other law enforcers to aid their criminal investigations.
The proposals in the Criminal Justice and Police Bill published on Friday 19 January give the Revenue and Customs the power to disclose otherwise confidential information for the purpose of current or future criminal investigations or criminal proceedings before the courts, in the United Kingdom or overseas.
Other measures will also enable Revenue and Customs investigators, as well as the police and other law enforcers, to remove items from premises being searched in order to examine them elsewhere to determine which can be seized as evidence. The Revenue says that the power will be used where it is impracticable, because of the bulk or format of the material, to sift on the searched premises. This power is to be subject to safeguards to ensure the return of documents, which should not be retained by investigators, and to ensure the destruction of copies.
(Source: Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise press release dated 22 January 2001.)
Stakeholder regulations
The tax framework for the new stakeholder pension schemes to be introduced from 6 April 2001 has been finalised.
New regulations are intended to simplify the process of making transfers between different types of pension schemes, cover arrangements for existing occupational pension schemes to convert to the new, simpler, tax rules, and list the permissible investments of schemes (including the new individual pension accounts).
The simplified process for transfer payments set out in the regulations will:
* ease the lump sum restrictions on transfers from occupational schemes to a personal pension scheme including a stakeholder pension. These restrictions will now apply only to controlling directors and to those who are aged 45 or more whose earnings also exceed the pensions earnings cap;
* reduce the numbers subject to a new valuation test. This will also apply only to those in the same category as above;
* accommodate pension sharing on divorce (to have effect on 14 February 2001);
* allow funds in income drawdown to be transferred (also to have effect on 14 February).
The regulations are The Personal Pension Schemes (Transfer Payment) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001 No 119), The Personal Pension Schemes (Conversion of Retirement Benefit Schemes) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001 No 118), and The Personal Pension Schemes (Restriction on Discretion to Approve) (Permitted Investments) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001 No 117).
The regulations will mostly come into force with effect from 6 April 2001. Copies are available from the Stationery Office.
They are also on the Revenue website at www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/si/index.htm.
(Source: Inland Revenue press release dated 24 January 2001.)
PoW ex gratia payments
The £10,000 ex-gratia payments to surviving members or surviving spouses of British groups held prisoner by the Japanese during the Second World War will be free from inheritance tax on death.
Claims for these ex-gratia payments should be made to the War Pensions Agency (an executive agency of the Department of Social Security) at Norcross, Blackpool, FY5 3WP, tel: (United Kingdom only) 0800 169 2277, overseas +44 1 253 866043.
An extra-statutory concession gives effect to the tax exemption, and the text is reproduced below.
Extra-Statutory Concession F20
The Government announced on 7 November 2000 that, on a claim made to the War Pensions Agency, it would make a single ex-gratia payment to each surviving member of the British groups interned or imprisoned by the Japanese during the Second World War. Where the member did not survive to 7 November the claim may be made by their surviving spouse. If they survive to 7 November but die before making a claim, it may be made by their estate or their surviving spouse. Each eligible claimant will be entitled to a single sum of £10,000 unless exceptionally they qualify for more than one payment by virtue of being both an ex-prisoner of war and a surviving spouse of a deceased ex-prisoner of war.
Payments of this kind would normally increase the value of a deceased person's chargeable estate at death, either because a claim paid in their lifetime has increased their total assets, or because the right to a claim not yet paid is itself an asset of their estate. By concession, where an ex-gratia payment has been received at any time, either by the deceased or his or her personal representatives under the above arrangements, the sum of £10,000 may be left out of account in determining the chargeable value of his estate for the purposes of inheritance tax on death. Similarly, where a person qualifies for more than one payment, then £10,000 per payment may be left out of account.
(Source: Inland Revenue press release dated 24 January 2001.)
Crime fighters
The Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise are to have a statutory power to disclose information to the police and other law enforcers to aid their criminal investigations.
The proposals in the Criminal Justice and Police Bill published on Friday 19 January give the Revenue and Customs the power to disclose otherwise confidential information for the purpose of current or future criminal investigations or criminal proceedings before the courts, in the United Kingdom or overseas.
Other measures will also enable Revenue and Customs investigators, as well as the police and other law enforcers, to remove items from premises being searched in order to examine them elsewhere to determine which can be seized as evidence. The Revenue says that the power will be used where it is impracticable, because of the bulk or format of the material, to sift on the searched premises. This power is to be subject to safeguards to ensure the return of documents, which should not be retained by investigators, and to ensure the destruction of copies.
(Source: Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise press release dated 22 January 2001.)
Stakeholder regulations
The tax framework for the new stakeholder pension schemes to be introduced from 6 April 2001 has been finalised.
New regulations are intended to simplify the process of making transfers between different types of pension schemes, cover arrangements for existing occupational pension schemes to convert to the new, simpler, tax rules, and list the permissible investments of schemes (including the new individual pension accounts).
The simplified process for transfer payments set out in the regulations will:
* ease the lump sum restrictions on transfers from occupational schemes to a personal pension scheme including a stakeholder pension. These restrictions will now apply only to controlling directors and to those who are aged 45 or more whose earnings also exceed the pensions earnings cap;
* reduce the numbers subject to a new valuation test. This will also apply only to those in the same category as above;
* accommodate pension sharing on divorce (to have effect on 14 February 2001);
* allow funds in income drawdown to be transferred (also to have effect on 14 February).
The regulations are The Personal Pension Schemes (Transfer Payment) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001 No 119), The Personal Pension Schemes (Conversion of Retirement Benefit Schemes) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001 No 118), and The Personal Pension Schemes (Restriction on Discretion to Approve) (Permitted Investments) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001 No 117).
The regulations will mostly come into force with effect from 6 April 2001. Copies are available from the Stationery Office.
They are also on the Revenue website at www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/si/index.htm.
(Source: Inland Revenue press release dated 24 January 2001.)
PoW ex gratia payments
The £10,000 ex-gratia payments to surviving members or surviving spouses of British groups held prisoner by the Japanese during the Second World War will be free from inheritance tax on death.
Claims for these ex-gratia payments should be made to the War Pensions Agency (an executive agency of the Department of Social Security) at Norcross, Blackpool, FY5 3WP, tel: (United Kingdom only) 0800 169 2277, overseas +44 1 253 866043.
An extra-statutory concession gives effect to the tax exemption, and the text is reproduced below.
Extra-Statutory Concession F20
The Government announced on 7 November 2000 that, on a claim made to the War Pensions Agency, it would make a single ex-gratia payment to each surviving member of the British groups interned or imprisoned by the Japanese during the Second World War. Where the member did not survive to 7 November the claim may be made by their surviving spouse. If they survive to 7 November but die before making a claim, it may be made by their estate or their surviving spouse. Each eligible claimant will be entitled to a single sum of £10,000 unless exceptionally they qualify for more than one payment by virtue of being both an ex-prisoner of war and a surviving spouse of a deceased ex-prisoner of war.
Payments of this kind would normally increase the value of a deceased person's chargeable estate at death, either because a claim paid in their lifetime has increased their total assets, or because the right to a claim not yet paid is itself an asset of their estate. By concession, where an ex-gratia payment has been received at any time, either by the deceased or his or her personal representatives under the above arrangements, the sum of £10,000 may be left out of account in determining the chargeable value of his estate for the purposes of inheritance tax on death. Similarly, where a person qualifies for more than one payment, then £10,000 per payment may be left out of account.
(Source: Inland Revenue press release dated 24 January 2001.)
