Mr. Francois: To ask the Chancellor
of the Exchequer how much has been spent
on developing the HM Revenue and Customs
brand since 2005.
Dawn Primarolo: Since 2005, £720,000
has been spent on developing the HM Revenue
and Customs brand.
No comment!
Tax
Changes
The tax changes made to
trusts in last year’s budget has
led to many families moving to bare trust
arrangements. Bare trusts are commonly
used to enable gifts to be made for minors
who cannot easily hold property in their
own name. A bare trust ensures the funds
can be appropriately managed until the
child reaches adulthood.
The Chancellor has moved to discourage
small businesses from incorporating for
tax reasons by increasing the tax they
will pay on profits up to £300,000,
from 19% to 20% with effect from 1 April
2007. The small companies rate will further
increase 21% in 2008 and to 22% in 2009.
There has been a lot of
publicity about the announcement that
the government propose to reduce the
basic rate of income tax from 22% to
20%. This change is due to take effect
from 2008/09 and not from 6 April 2007.
The Employers annual returns P35 and
P14 (P60) are due for submission to HMRC
by 19 May 2007. There is a tax free incentive
payments due of £150 for small
employers with less than 50 employees
who successfully file their returns electronically.
The new National Minimum Wage rate of £5.52
(£5.35) an hour from October 2007
has been announced. Other rates rise
from £4.45 to £4.60 for 18-21
year olds, and from £3.30 to £3.40
for 16-17 year olds.
The Department of Trade
and Industry and has launched a consultation
to look at how to improve the way employment
disputes are resolved. The consultation
follows a wide-ranging independent review.
The government has said that it is committed
to piloting any new approach to dispute
resolution that follows the consultation.
A recent case has once
again illustrated the difficulties for
people who don’t check their own
state pension entitlement and later find
out that there are ‘holes’ in
their record.
In previous enews we have
advised you of HMRC’s intention
to change significantly the VAT fuel
scale charges payable by businesses on
the provision of fuel for private motoring
for their company car drivers. The system
of calculating the output VAT charge
on a simple cylinder banded table is
withdrawn for the businesses first VAT
return commencing after 1 May 2007.
