With all the present upheavals in UK politics it is reassuring that for one government department, the Treasury, it’s business as usual.

Ordinarily, we would expect the next Budget to be presented to parliament in the autumn, usually November. As part of the Budget 2018, certain changes to the tax code were disclosed in advance of their expected implementation, April 2020.

These future changes have now been published as draft clauses for the 2019 Finance Bill.

In their recent press release, HMRC have confirmed:

The government is today (11 July 2019) publishing draft legislation for the next Finance Bill to deliver on our Budget 2018 commitment to a competitive and fair tax system, including updating tax policies for the digital age by ensuring large digital companies pay their fair share through a world-leading Digital Services Tax.

This Finance Bill, published in draft form today, ensures that from April [2020] next year:

• large digital businesses pay a new Digital Services Tax that reflects the value derived from their UK users,
• off-payroll working rules will ensure that two people working side by side in a similar role for the same employer pay the same employment taxes,
• when a business becomes insolvent, more of the taxes paid in good faith by its employees and customers will go to fund public services as intended, rather than being distributed to other creditors such as financial institutions.

The consultations on the draft legislation will run until 5 September, with measures included in the next Finance Bill.

Apart from the above and a multitude of technical changes to be included in the Finance Bill 2019, there are also changes to Private Residence Relief for capital gains tax purposes. The mooted changes are listed below.

The measures make a number of changes to Capital Gains Tax private residence relief (PRR) where individuals have more than one residence.

• It reduces final period exemption from 18 months to 9 months (there are no changes to the 36 months that are available to disabled persons or those in a care home) and
• reforms lettings relief so that it only applies in those circumstances where the owner of the property is in shared-occupancy with a tenant.

And no doubt there will be more content added to the Finance Bill as the Brexit process unwinds.

Source: DocSafe