MPs from the Treasury Select Committee have called for a review of HMRC's powers, deterrents and safeguards following considering the proposals in the 2014 budget which include retrospective taxation and direct access to taxpayer's bank accounts.
SME Tax News
HMRC has agreed on proposals for developing their "Agent Strategy" and is working with agents’ representative bodies to take this work forward.
The Direct Recovery of Debts consultation: HMRC is now consulting on possibly the most terrifying new power ever proposed. It wants to be allowed to recover tax and tax credit debts directly from debtors’ bank accounts. Unsurprisingly, there is a lot of opposition to this proposal, not least because HMRC is considering that debtors once targeted should have no right of appeal.
In Richard Murray v HMRC TC 03474, the First Tier Tribunal disallowed a sideways claim for trade loss relief against general income. The trade was not run on a commercial basis.
In Neil McLocklin v HMRC (TC 03182), the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) allowed a claim for share loss relief when shares had become of negligible value even though they were acquired by a nominee under some rather unusual conditions.
In RD Utilities v HMRC [2014] TC03440 a request for a Schedule 36 information notice was set aside by the tribunal because it was so poorly drafted that it was impossible for the parties to know whether it had been complied with.
HMRC issued new guidance for pensioners who are immediately wishing to take advantage of the new pensions flexibility measures, as announced in the 2014 Budget.
In Brimheath Developments Limited & Michael Victor Burgess v HMRC [2013] TC 03438 the FTT found that the taxpayers had failed to discharge the required burden of proof in connection with discovery assessments to demonstrate that they were unfair and were not based on inferences from the available evidence.
In Susan Corbett v HMRC [2014] TC 03435, a wife, who had apparently resigned from her husband’s business was still treated as an employee for the purposes of Capital Gains Tax (CGT) relief.
In Steven Singh v HMRC [2014] TC 03436, the FTT considered whether Mr Singh had a reasonable excuse for failing to provide information under an Information Notice and upheld certain penalties for his failure to do so.