UK Tax

[jungle]

Caller , yes Sugar  hasn’t broken any laws and his agents are at fault .
The issue I have is that how can someone have a business in the UK. Make a profit from having that business there then not pay tax on it ?
I realize if they have to pay tax on that income in the country they are moving to well ok
Regards sugar Australia is one of the few countries that don’t tax incoming wealth
The Lords ….well one can question its need to be

[caller]

The issue I have is that how can someone have a business in the UK. Make a profit from having that business there then not pay tax on it ?

I have absolutely no idea, even if it is true? Perhaps a taxation recipricol agreement? So in the same way, if someone from Australia sends their windfall to the UK, then it is taxed in the UK.

I suspect it is to do with the type of payment it is, which would have had tax paid on it at various stages as it passed through the system, before it ended up as a one-off dividend payment? As discussed this was accrued money over several years. Maybe the taxman has already had his cut?

[Roger]

Recently posted : "Ten million calls to the taxman are going unanswered a year – as it is revealed that 80 per cent of all HM Revenue & Customs staff now work from home. The MoS has uncovered the office attendance records for all 67,000 HMRC staff – the first time the data has been disclosed. Just one in five were in the office at any one time in July."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12474667/HMRC-staff-leave-TEN-MILLION-phone-calls-unanswered-year-employees-work-home.html

Working from home became common during the pandemic and it seems to me reasonable that it can continue IF it is acceptable to the Employer BUT if it is not, then you get back to the bloody office or find other Employment. Is that unreasonable, or is HMRC now managed by the junior ranks ??

[Roger]

The DT view 7/9 : " A priority for the Government has to be improving the pitiful performance of public sector agencies such as HMRC. These bodies ought to see themselves as the servants of the public. Their sole focus should be on delivering the best possible service to taxpayers. Too often, however, this seems to take a backseat to providing generous pay and flexible working conditions to staff.

The situation is particularly egregious in the case of HMRC because it is responsible for collecting the money that so much of the British state seems to waste. But after it emerged that 10 million calls to the body go unanswered a year, the Treasury minister Victoria Atkins appeared more inclined to defend it than hold it to account.

While she said that she took reports of appalling customer service very seriously, she also remarked that some people should not be calling up HMRC at all, if their queries could be easily answered online. Doubtless HMRC does get some unnecessary phone calls. But leaving aside the difficulties that many older people face with online services, and the fact that some people do not have the internet at all, the problem is surely not time-wasting by confused taxpayers, but rather the deficiencies in the service provided by HMRC as well as the excessive complexity of the tax system that it oversees.

The organisation is one of the many in the public sector that still practises widespread home working, although it denies any link between this and its performance." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2023/09/07/hmrc-must-serve-the-taxpayer/

And 13/9 "Thousands of HM Revenue and Customs staff are routinely failing to show up to the office even for one day a week as customer service falls to “unacceptable levels”. As many as two in five workers at regional HMRC centres did not go into the office at all in the year to March, figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws show.

It is the latest evidence of civil servants increasingly shunning the office to work remotely. The figures come amid complaints that letters to the tax office have gone unanswered." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/hmrc-staff-work-from-home-taxpayer-civil-servants/

WHEN the HMRC phonelines reopened on 4/9 I spent 50 minutes waiting.

[caller]

It was certain;y hopeless is March and April, I never got though (using skype). I got past the press x,y or z bit, then nothing. Most of the time I got cut off. I did write in and although they replied on a few issues, the one thing I really wanted info about, they said I must call in and speak to someone. I never bothered.

[jungle]

Sunak proposes  an un funded reduction in the inheritance tax with a view to abolishing it eventually
Personally I can’t understand why some are viewing this a a vote catcher
As only under 4 % pay this tax

[Roger]

Yes I agree with that Jungle - I guess its a rumble for the upcoming Tory Party Conference 

[Alfie]

Only about 3.7% pay inheritance tax now but that will surely rise soon with the threshold being frozen at £325,000 until 2028 and the value of houses being what they are these days. The average UK house price was £288,000 in June 2023. The average price in London was £526,000 in May 2023.

[jungle]

Agree with your point Alfie .I wouldn’t imagine it not  being to difficult to inflation index the inherent tax
But I think Sunak is after bigger cuts as he’s stated his desire to eventually do away with it completely
Would be interesting to find out what % of the 3.7% pay inheritance tax on less than say  £500.000

[Coolkorat]

Only about 3.7% pay inheritance tax now but that will surely rise soon with the threshold being frozen at £325,000 until 2028 and the value of houses being what they are these days. The average UK house price was £288,000 in June 2023. The average price in London was £526,000 in May 2023.

Sunak's family would save £300m....

[Alfie]

Sunak's family would save £300m....

I did wonder about that, CK!