Last week, the Office of Tax Simplification published the second volume of its recommendations for the reform of capital gains tax (CGT).
The first report
The first report, published in November 2020, looked not only at the rate of tax but the annual exempt amount and rules relating to transfers and to business reliefs. Here’s a quick summary of the headline reforms proposed in the first report:
The net effect of all these reforms would be to increase the amount of CGT collected by HMRC. Around 265,000 people pay CGT each year, paying an average of around £32,000 in tax. Both the pool of people paying CGT and the relative tax yield are small compared to income tax which generates £180bn per year.
To put that another way, simply increasing the rate of tax won’t do much to improve the nation’s finances. Indeed, if the tax rate rises the tax yield may fall as planning is undertaken to defer CGT, when taxpayers would otherwise have been happy to pay the tax immediately at a lower rate.
Widening the CGT net by including more people would be administratively burdensome for HMRC as it would require more individuals to file tax returns. In our view, simply raising the level of CGT is not the answer for modernising the capital taxes regime. The factors at work are complicated and require a joined-up review of all capital taxes once the OTS evidence-gathering phase is complete.
The second report
That point has now been reached with the publication of the second OTS report which concentrates on resolving some of the complexities in the CGT regime. The key recommendations here are:
What happens next?
That very much depends on the chancellor and the Treasury. It would not be unprecedented for them to ignore expert reports which they have commissioned, perhaps kicking the can down the road with a call for further review to cover trusts, partnerships and international matters. However, faced with the twin pressures of modernising the tax system while raising more revenue, we may well see specific proposals for reforming CGT included in the next Budget.
George Bull, RSM (RSM’s Weekly Tax Brief)
Last week, the Office of Tax Simplification published the second volume of its recommendations for the reform of capital gains tax (CGT).
The first report
The first report, published in November 2020, looked not only at the rate of tax but the annual exempt amount and rules relating to transfers and to business reliefs. Here’s a quick summary of the headline reforms proposed in the first report:
The net effect of all these reforms would be to increase the amount of CGT collected by HMRC. Around 265,000 people pay CGT each year, paying an average of around £32,000 in tax. Both the pool of people paying CGT and the relative tax yield are small compared to income tax which generates £180bn per year.
To put that another way, simply increasing the rate of tax won’t do much to improve the nation’s finances. Indeed, if the tax rate rises the tax yield may fall as planning is undertaken to defer CGT, when taxpayers would otherwise have been happy to pay the tax immediately at a lower rate.
Widening the CGT net by including more people would be administratively burdensome for HMRC as it would require more individuals to file tax returns. In our view, simply raising the level of CGT is not the answer for modernising the capital taxes regime. The factors at work are complicated and require a joined-up review of all capital taxes once the OTS evidence-gathering phase is complete.
The second report
That point has now been reached with the publication of the second OTS report which concentrates on resolving some of the complexities in the CGT regime. The key recommendations here are:
What happens next?
That very much depends on the chancellor and the Treasury. It would not be unprecedented for them to ignore expert reports which they have commissioned, perhaps kicking the can down the road with a call for further review to cover trusts, partnerships and international matters. However, faced with the twin pressures of modernising the tax system while raising more revenue, we may well see specific proposals for reforming CGT included in the next Budget.
George Bull, RSM (RSM’s Weekly Tax Brief)