The government has published over 30 updates, consultations and documents on the UK’s first ever tax day.
On 23 march 2021, `Tax Day`, the government published a range of consultations and reviews. The primary focus was the modernization of the tax system, boosting compliance and streamlining tax payments. However, there was little information on the future policy direction and more “high profile” areas such as online sales tax, taxation of wealth and environmental taxes were not covered.
It was announced that HMRC will tighten rules to force holidays and let landlords prove they have made realistic effort to rent properties out for at least 140 days per year. There are suspicious that many simply declare that they will do this but leave the properties empty. Declaring a home to be a holiday let means that it was exempt from council tax and owners pay business rates instead.
Declaring a home to be a holiday lets means that it is exempt from council tax owners pay business rates instead.
Inheritance tax (IHT) reporting regulations “will be simplified” to ensure that from 1 January 2022 more than 90% of non-taxpaying estates will no longer have to complete IHT forms when probate or confirmation is required.
Jesse Norman, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said:
`We are making these announcements to increase the transparency, discipline and accessibility of tax policy making, these measures will help us upgrade and digitise the UK tax system, tackle tax avoidance and fraud, among other things. Many of today’s announcements from a key part of the governments wider 10-year plan to build a trusted, modern tax system, `
