Fine-tuning: HMRC to reconsider landfill tax guidance

HMRC announced last week that it was postponing publication of revised guidance on the landfill tax after industry raised fears that the proposals could lead to a trebling in the price of hiring a skip.

The announcement follows a six-week ‘informal consultation’ during which interested parties were invited to comment on draft guidance put forward. Significant interest was generated with HMRC receiving around 120 individual responses.

The main area of contention relates to the tax treatment of materials known as ‘trommel fines’. These are the residues from processing at waste transfer stations. Typically the waste arrives at these sites in a skip or other unsorted form and is then passed through special sieves or ‘trommels’ to segregate it into different types of material. This leaves a filtered residue or ‘fine’.

Trommel fines have always been problematic in relation to the...