The first "Tax Day" back in March proved to be a fairly low key affair. This time around the government called the event "Tax Administration and Maintenance Day", and it lived up (or down) to its name, with lots of the materials focussing on improving the nuts and bolts of tax administration so as to take advantage of modern technology and reduce opportunities for non-compliance.
That's not to say that there was not much for tax practitioners to get their teeth into, but on the whole there was little new information that will be of immediate relevance to most businesses. There were some notable omissions, in particular, we still do not have the (long awaited) consultation on the VAT treatment of fund management fees and did not get any more idea as to how the government intends to implement the OECD's two pillar plan to reform global corporate taxation within the OECD's challenging timetable (with most measures due to have effect in 2023).
Highlights included receiving more detail on the research and development relief reforms announced in the Autumn Budget and, in line with the government's objective to maintain the UK’s position as a leading financial services centre, the publication of draft legislation implementing tax reforms to make the UK securitisation company regime more attractive plus government confirmation that it will also be informally consulting more generally on whether that regime is available to the appropriate range of sectors and types of investor. There were also some real estate tax announcements of interest, including potential reform to the stamp duty land tax position of mixed-use developments and more detail on business rate proposals announced in the Autumn Budget (for more details of which please see our briefing "Tax Administration and Maintenance Day - property tax consultations"). In addition, it seems that the government will be taking forward only a limited amount of the Office of Tax Simplification's ideas on CGT reform, and none of the more radical ones.
