14 June 2024
Ahead of the General Election on 4 July 2024, UK political parties have started to publish manifestos setting out their policy proposals for if they were to be in government. Manifestos published so far include those of the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party of England & Wales. Further manifestos are expected to be published next week, including the manifesto of Reform UK, an initial draft version of which was published earlier this year.
On Thursday 20 June 2024, at 14:30 BST/15:30 CEST, there will be an EMEA Dbriefs webcast titled UK General Election 2024. Our panel will discuss the tax policy and trade aspects of the manifestos and look at how the election may affect your business.
On 5 June 2024, the Australian government introduced a new bill into the Parliament of Australia, including clauses for public country-by-country (CbC) reporting requirements. The public CbC proposals apply to large groups (with annual turnover of AUD 1 billion or more) that have operations in Australia. In line with an Exposure Draft released in February 2024, the proposals will require the annual reporting of certain tax and other information on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis. Data for Australia and specified countries will be reported individually, with data for the rest of the world aggregated and reported together. Once enacted, the rules will take effect for reporting periods commencing on or after 1 July 2024, with in-scope groups being required to report their information to the Australian Tax Office within 12 months of their year-end for publication. Please see Deloitte Australia’s alert for further details.
In 2019, HMRC repaid Queenscourt Ltd VAT of £75,502, on the basis that dip pots sold as part of takeaway meal deals at its KFC outlets should be treated as separate zero-rated supplies. When Queenscourt submitted a top-up claim in 2020, a different HMRC officer determined that the dip pots were part of a single standard-rated supply and issued an assessment to recoup the VAT previously repaid. The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) has now ruled that the dip pots formed part of a standard-rated supply.
The FTT also considered whether it was fair of HMRC to revisit the original claim. As a general rule, the FTT does not have any general supervisory jurisdiction over HMRC’s actions (judicial review applications are a matter for the High Court). However, the Court of Appeal has previously ruled (Beadle) that public law arguments can be deployed as defences to HMRC enforcement action even at the FTT, unless expressly excluded by statute. The FTT considered that this principle (as applied by the Upper Tribunal in Zeman) could be reconciled with more general observations from the courts about the limited scope of the FTT’s jurisdiction. Based on this, there is some further support for arguments about legitimate expectation to be heard by the FTT in appeals against HMRC assessments. However, appellants should bear in mind the associated standard of proof. For there to be any remedy, HMRC’s actions must be “conspicuously” or “outrageously” unfair (formally, this is not the same as having to show detrimental reliance, but it amounted to much the same thing in this case). Although Queenscourt described various initiatives which had to be put on hold when it was required to repay the £75,502, the FTT considered that its evidence was insufficient to supplant HMRC’s obligation to collect the right amount of VAT. Queenscourt’s appeal was dismissed. (Contact: Andrew Roberts)
The next EMEA Dbriefs tax webcast will be on Wednesday 19 June 2024 at 12:00 BST/13:00 CEST. Your global workforce footprint – optimal structures and approaches, hosted by Rumi Das, is the first webcast in our new global employer services ‘A World of Talent’ series, exploring the world of managing, attracting and retaining global talent. In this webcast, our panel will discuss circumstances where a business may need to re-evaluate and even restructure its global workforce footprint, and examine the key considerations that need to be taken into account when designing and implementing global talent structures and the challenges that may arise.
As noted above, on Thursday 20 June 2024, at 14:30 BST/15:30 CEST, we have a special Dbriefs tax webcast on the UK general election and the tax policy and trade aspects of the parties’ election manifestos.