The Finance Act 2008
26 Aug 2008
Finally, the Finance Act 2008, which was originally trailed in the Finance Act 2007 and indeed in the Pre-Budget Statement of 2006, has now received Royal Assent.
The Finance Act is particularly complex this year especially for those who are UK resident but not domiciled in the UK. Schedule 7 of the Act establishes a new regime for such individuals and it runs to a mere 71 pages.
This is all very exciting stuff which we will need to absorb and act on quickly before the game begins again in November with the next pre-budget report. Of course, the present economic climate makes it most unlikely that there will be any tax giveaways in the impending pre-budget report. We plan to highlight areas where there are still opportunities for planning to mitigate inheritance tax and capital gains tax.
We intend to enlarge on our comments here in the next few weeks.
We will also examine and draw attention to the changes now operative for those who are not UK domiciled. There are also new rules to determine the character of funds remitted to the UK out of a mixed fund, that is an amalgam of different types of income and/or gains and/or pure capital. These mixed fund rules apply to income and/or gains arising after April 2008.
Of course, there are wide anti-avoidance provisions to deter any exploitation of the new mixed fund rules.
