SME Tax News

The Public Accounts Committee's (PAC) report on ‘Progress in Making Tax Digital’ reveals grave concerns over the project’s spiralling costs, design flaws and missed deadlines. It has issued five recommendations for HMRC to follow.

In HMRC v Fisher & Anor and HMRC v Fisher Respondent No 2 [2023] UKSC 44, the Supreme Court held that the transfer of a business to Gibraltar could not be a Transfer of Assets Abroad as it was not made by the individual shareholders but by a company owned by them.

In Gary Ives v HMRC [2023] TC08989, the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) found that the appellant was not carrying on a trade by renovating and selling three successive properties. These were family homes subject to Capital Gains Tax (CGT) and, as such, Private Residence Relief (PRR) applied.

In Access Contracting Services Ltd v HMRC [2023] TC08994, the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) found that a company had not taken reasonable care to comply with the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) regulations. The FTT upheld HMRC’s assessment of CIS under-deducted from subcontractors.

HMRC have issued their Agent Update for November 2023. We have summarised the key content for you with links to our detailed guidance on the topics covered.

HMRC will commence a further One-to-Many letter campaign this month, targeted at taxpayers who incorporated their property business in 2017-18 and applied Incorporation Relief on the transfer, for Capital Gains Tax (CGT) purposes. 

In Mark Alan Smith & Robert Andrew Corbett v HMRC [2023] TC8977, the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) found that a company did not own the goodwill associated with the business it carried on. HMRC's Income Tax assessment on the purported distribution of the goodwill, by the company, failed. The goodwill was not the company's asset to distribute.