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HMRC have published updated guidance on the general anti-abuse rule (GAAR), effective from 30 January 2015.
The new information replaces the 15 April 2013 version and includes documents setting out the changes, with updated links and statutory references and corrections to typographical. Substantial alterations include:
HMRC have published updated guidance on the general anti-abuse rule (GAAR), effective from 30 January 2015.
The new information replaces the 15 April 2013 version and includes documents setting out the changes, with updated links and statutory references and corrections to typographical. Substantial alterations include:
- A new final sentence to paragraph B6.1, to make it clear the Revenue can use the GAAR alongside technical challenges as an alternative argument.
- The penultimate sentence of B13.3 has been written to the effect that, in relation to counteraction and consequential adjustments, an abusive transaction can be compared with no action at all: “[J]ust and reasonable counteraction would be to select the transaction which a taxpayer would most likely carry out in such circumstances, which might be that no transaction would have been carried out, and to adjust the tax consequences on the basis that this alternative transaction had been carried out or, as the case may be, that no transaction had been carried out at all.”
- Clarification in E3.3.2 that the content of a notice by the taxman to a taxpayer of proposed counteraction of tax advantage “will take into account the information the advisory panel has indicated they will require from HMRC as set out in the advisory panel’s guidance on procedures for dealing with referred cases”.
- Clarification in E3.5.5 that the GAAR advisory panel is “not a fact-finding body”.
The Revenue also states, “Just because something isn’t covered by the GAAR doesn’t mean it won’t be tackled in another way. HMRC will continue to tackle tax avoidance using existing anti avoidance methods, as well as the GAAR, where appropriate.”
