Malcolm Gunn

MALCOLM GUNN FTII, TEP examines the new VAT flat rate scheme for small businesses with turnover of £100,000 or less.

IN CASE YOU missed it, a wonderful new piece of tax simplification emerged like a butterfly from a chrysalis on 24 April 2002. We all complain about complexity in tax matters and the impossibility of the average man in the street understanding even what the basic rate is (10 per cent? 20 per cent? 22 per cent?), so this genuine attempt at making tax totally straightforward is to be applauded.

MALCOLM GUNN FTII, TEP looks at some of the strains and stresses of the self-assessment system.

I USED TO lament my lot in life until I started reading reports of Parliamentary select committees. Being summoned before them must be the modern day equivalent of getting called in by Squeers of Dotheboys Hall: 'Now, you listen to me, Stovold, you are an incompetent, pathetic, snivelling, hopeless little wretch who has never got one single thing right, now stop blubbering and go and scrub the loo of my study until it is totally spotless!'.

Further to Malcolm Gunn's excellent article on Schedule D expenses in Taxation, 27 June 2002, I would like to make two points.

MALCOLM GUNN FTII, TEP examines the 'wholly and exclusively' rule in the context of Schedule D.

THESE ARE THE thoughts of Chairman Gunn on the 'wholly and exclusively' rule applicable to Schedule D, Cases I and II. Already I can hear the shouts in response: 'He's finally flipped! We know this old stuff better than he does. We have analysed it, agonised over it and argued it down countless years and there's nothing he can tell us about it that we don't already know!'

MALCOLM GUNN FTII, TEP reports highlights of the 2002 Sussex STEP conference.

Deeds of variation

MALCOLM GUNN FTII, TEP details a case where some inheritance tax planning needed further tinkering.

MALCOLM GUNN FTII, TEP reports a recent Court of Session decision concerning forward tax contracts with the Revenue.

MALCOLM GUNN FTII, TEP revisits a tax planning idea with deeds of variation.

ARE YOU FOR or against tax complexity? It sounds like a simple question with a simple answer: against. Or would it be more accurate to say that there is a short answer which is against, and a long answer which is maybe not! Reserve judgment until you have read what follows.

Causes of complexity

MALCOLM GUNN FTII, TEP discusses a recent Special Commissioner's decision concerning inheritance tax penalties.