Helen Lethaby reviews recent developments, including the revised code of practice for banks, corresponding adjustments, corporate debt and derivatives, and the EU financial transaction tax.
On 11 October HMRC published a summary of responses to its May consultation document Strengthening the code of practice on taxation for banks together with revised draft legislation and governance protocol. Strengthening the (voluntary) code means the legislative empowering of HMRC to name and shame non-compliant and non-signatory banks in an annual report. The May consultation proposed that determining whether a bank had been non-compliant and whether naming and shaming was justified should be at HMRC’s discretion with a referral by HMRC to the GAAR advisory panel amounting to automatic non-compliance irrespective of the outcome of the...
