I’ve been saying for some time that the R&D tax credit relief system isn’t working as it should. The Chancellor now appears to agree. So I think it’s likely that we will see a major overhaul to the system some time in the next 12 months. There may even be something in the Spring Statement…

Set against a background that we have never seen before, the Chancellor has presented the Autumn 2021 Budget and Spending Review. There will be much comment elsewhere on the economic background and the Spending Review and this is not covered in this note. This brief note summarises the (few) key tax proposals as the affect…

What a Budget and Spending Review this promises to be! When the Chancellor last stood at the Despatch Box to present a Budget, we were only days from the first lockdown. What a momentous 18 months we’ve seen since then. This statement on Wednesday will be a combination of a Spending Review (quite a bit…

The UK tax gap for 2019 – 2020 has been estimated to be £35bn, which is 5.3% of total theoretical tax liabilities (5.5% up on the previous year). HMRC said the tax gap has been reducing over the past 15 years from 7.5% in 2005 – 2006. What is particularly interesting is that HMRC attributes…

Recently published statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that expenditure on research and development (R&D) performed in the UK rose by £1.3bn to £38.5bn in 2019. This is only a 3.4% increase and is the lowest percentage growth since 2013. Funding of UK R&D from overseas increased by 4.1% to £5.6bn in…

The effect of the pandemic The Chancellor said that the pandemic has “fundamentally altered” people’s lives. The Chancellor added that more than 700,000 people have lost their jobs, the economy shrank by almost 10% last year and borrowing is up. But the economy “will recover”, Sunak says, and that, once recovery begins, the government will…

Although there is not an autumn Budget this year, there have been some significant tax announcements last week contained in a written Parliamentary statement given by Jesse Norman, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on 12 November. In line with the tax policy-making framework, the Government consulted on a number of tax policies announced at Spring…

Published on 12 November, the Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) has published its first review of capital gains tax (CGT). This new report, written in response to the Chancellor’s request earlier this year, is the first that the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) has devoted to CGT. The Chancellor asked the OTS, in particular, to ‘identify opportunities…

Covid-19 will be a catalyst for the next wave of entrepreneurship and innovation. The world will need to adapt, with speed and agility: innovative entrepreneurship, thinking outside of the box,  will provide a greater range of options for generating the “new normal”. But the speed of response, and hence change, is vital. One of the…

The Chancellor today announced a new range of measures to help businesses and individuals through the next six months. More details will emerge over the coming hours and days. The Chancellor said the backdrop to the current announcements are: “Nurture recover by protecting jobs” There is a permanent adjustment to the economy Any financial plan…