A record 10.74m tax returns were filed for 2012/13 by 31 January, the highest proportion (93.4%) of on-time submissions recorded. Around 8.48m were filed online, passing last year's figure by 0.55m. The busiest day for online returns was 31 January, when HMRC received 569,847. The busiest hour occurred between 4pm and 5pm on the same day: 45,706 returns were received at more than 12 a second, while 21,027 taxpayers filed their return between 11pm and midnight on deadline day.
Sanderson v CRC, Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber)
The taxman’s powers to withhold repayments
Users of avoidance schemes will be expected to pay tax upfront under proposals issued by HMRC.
A new consultation document, Tackling Marketed Tax Avoidance, outlines plans to extend accelerated payment of disputed tax to arrangements subject to the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes (DOTAS) regime and to taxpayers being investigated under the general anti-abuse rule (GAAR).
The HMRC information service on tax avoidance arrangements, Spotlights, has added an update on contractor loan schemes in light of the First-tier Tribunal decision in P Boyle (TC3103).
The tribunal dismissed all the arguments put forward by an IT contractor that his contractor loan scheme worked and the money he received was not subject to tax. The judge decided that the money paid over to the taxpayer as loans was “in substance and reality income from his employment” and therefore taxable.
How Orwell’s classic novel foreshadowed HMRC’s current behaviour
National Insurance; capital gains tax; social investment tax relief; creative industries; avoidance; Charity Commission
The Revenue’s approach to tax dodging and the questions advisers should be asking clients
The cases of Tower Radio and Aberdeen Asset Management are further evidence of a shift in the courts against avoidance
A director’s loan account was overdrawn by £200,000 at the end of the accounting year and a dividend of an equivalent amount was declared as a repayment. Ffurther loans totalling £180,000 were made subsequently
HMRC have published a breakdown of the number of legal tax-dodging arrangements revealed to the department under the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes (DOTAS) regime in the six months to 30 September 2013.
The figures show 17 reports covering direct tax were made during the most recent period, the smallest number since DOTAS was introduced in 2004 and nearly half of the 32 registered in the previous half-year.
HMRC have updated their Spotlights page on tax avoidance schemes to draw attention to the department’s recent First-tier Tribunal victory in the LM Ferro Ltd case, which involved an attempt to make a gratuity in the form of restricted shares in another company.