Corporate scrapings at the bottom of the Emergency Budget fish paper

Corporate scrapings at the bottom of the Emergency Budget fish paper

Wed 08 Jul 2015

Every budget includes an element of parish notices for forthcoming changes, housekeeping and re-hashing of previously announced measures. George Osborne’s Emergency Budget is no different when it comes to corporate taxes. Outside of both the headline grabbing announcements and the significant changes hidden in the detail of the HMRC notices, there are a range of lower key changes which will be the devil in the detail for those in the corporate world.

Two areas on which more detail is awaited are:

  • Reform of the Wear & Tear Allowance. Often an area for private landlords of residential properties, but also impacting on corporates operating in this sector – particularly those constructing and operating student accommodation. Student accommodation was specifically subject to changes in these rules only a few years ago and so further revision will create more uncertainty in this area. These rules will be replaced from April 2016 but we await a technical consultation to see the colour of this leopard’s spots.
  • The world of large business tax compliance. As well as further investment in HMRC’s resources, the Government’s announcements include:
    • a “special measures” regime (not dissimilar to failing schools perhaps) for those who are persistent offenders in the eyes of HMRC; and
    • A voluntary Code of Practice setting out the standards of behaviour HMRC expects large business to meet in respect of their relationship with HMRC.

Again, these will be subject to consultation but after the introduction of the Senior Accounting Officer obligations and the risk based relationships managed by HMRC Customer Relationship Managers, it appears HMRC are continuing their trend of dictating to corporates what self-assessment actually means as well as potentially setting in advance benchmarks for behaviours which, if not met, could then be defined as “careless”.

A number of these measures build on those previously announced as part of the Autumn Statement in 2014 and earlier. The Summer Finance Bill 2015, published on 15 July 2015, will include:

  • Measures relating to consortium relief claims and requirements relating to “link” companies which are resident outside of the UK. Currently, “link” companies outside of the UK are subject to different requirements if they were part of the EEA, or consortium relief was completely denied if they were located in any other jurisdiction. Now all “link” companies will be treated the same regardless of the jurisdiction they are resident in.
  • The continued modernisation of corporate debt and derivative contracts following the consultations originally announced in Budget 2013. This is a case of re-announcing old news as these measures were outlined in draft legislation as part of the Autumn Statement 2014. You can see our previous commentary here. In terms of changes around derivatives, corporates should be more concerned over the timings of their elections relating to the disregard provisions when they are looking to adopt new UK GAAP – FRS 102 as these are proving rather challenging in practice for organisations and in a number of cases the deadlines have already passed!

Other housekeeping matters include:

  • Removal of the current ability for charities or universities to be able to claim research and development expenditure credits. The previous changes to the R&D rules were designed to encourage expenditure on R&D by businesses, especially given the Government’s drive for supporting the knowledge based economy. These amendments will prevent Universities or Charities potentially getting additional deductions beyond existing tax breaks afforded to them.
  • Closing a potential mis-match in the transfer of either trading stock or corporate intangibles between related parties. Ordinarily, such transfers between unconnected parties take place at market value. However, for connected parties the transfer pricing rules take precedence such that market value rules may not apply. The Summer Finance Bill will include legislation to remedy this mis-match.

For more information, please contact Greig Simms at greig.simms@mazars.co.uk

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