Interesting article in the Law Society Gazette on online estate fraud.

Fraudsters are increasingly targeting the estates of the deceased for valuable internet hosted assets such as online bank accounts.  The problem is that a Will becomes a public document when you seek confirmation.   A similar procedure applies in England & Wales.

The solution is stay “low tech”.  For example leave a note of your online account details  in a sealed envelope which can be kept by your solicitor alongside your Will.

The article can be found here.

A recent article on how one in ten of Britons have or intend to include their website passwords can also be found here.

Firstly to Belarus and Tax Information Exchange Agreements.  It was reported in this month’s STEP Journal that Belarusian human rights campaigner Ales Belyatsky has been arrested.  He was arrested soon after the Polish authorities gave the Belarusian authorities information relating to his bank accounts.   The Belarusian authorities had described him as a suspect in a tax investigation.  The Poles treated this as a routine request and handed over full details of his bank accounts.  He has been charged with tax evasion via a foreign bank account.  Belyatsky says the foreign bank account is used only to collect foreign contributions to his political movement.  The Polish Government has admitted it should not have disclosed Belyatsky’s bank details and has sacked the director and deputy head of its international cooperation department.

HMRC announced this week that approximately six million people are set to receive tax rebates averaging £400.  Another million people will learn they have underpaid their tax by about £600.  It is the second year that tax and National Insurance discrepancies have been identified by a new computer system.  HMRC said that the number of cases would reduce “as the new system beds in”.  Those who will be told they have not paid enough tax are expected to owe between £500 and £600 on average.  In a similar exercise last year, HMRC were criticised for being insensitive over their treatment of underpayers.  Another example of the complexity surrounding the UK tax system.

The Scottish Government announced a consultation on giving local authorities new powers to tax empty homes. The proposals would give local authorities the power to impose an extra levy of up to 100% of the standard charge. It is hoped that this could help raise millions of pounds to build new affordable houses.  The announcement stated that 25,000 properties have been empty for more than six months and are liable to pay council tax.  In Glasgow there are over 1,800 empty homes.  It is also claimed that if every local authority decide to use these powers they could raise up to £30 million per year.  I wrote about the connected issue of how local authorities are using funds gained from reducing the council tax discount in an earlier tax blog.  This blog can be found here.

This is something I have not come across before.  The Intergenerational Foundation called for tax breaks to encourage downsizing and help free up some of the estimated 25 million unused bedrooms in England.  The charity says that older people should be encouraged to move into smaller homes to help tackle England’s housing crisis.  The UK Government did not respond positively to this proposal.

Both sides in the battle over what independent schools have to do to justify their charitable status claimed victory last week.  The Independent Schools Council and the England and Wales Charity Commission are each claiming that the decision of the Upper Tax Tribunal vindicates their position. A similar debate is taking place in Scotland.  The tax issue here is the fact charities have a number of tax advantages including rates relief.

Now to the fiscal powers debate. Interesting to see Malcolm Chisholm MSP openly reject the Calman proposals. His comments mirror views recently expressed by former First Minister Henry McLeish.  Malcolm Chisholm is the first serving Labour MSP to openly reject the Calman proposals. The Scottish Government has renewed its call for control over Air Passenger Duty after the UK Government cut air passenger duty for Northern Ireland.  I also suspect that the Scotland Bill may be mentioned once or twice at the SNP conference which began yesterday.  The announcement that North Sea oil production will continue to at least 2050 ensures that oil and gas tax revenue is back at the top of the political agenda.

I have been asked to speak at Holyrood Magazine’s Scotland Bill conference on 8 November.  More information can be found here.  I can already hear myself saying: “does Scotland need a separate Registers of Scotland, Stamp Office, Companies House and Inheritance Tax office? Then again I have been making that point for 5 years now and no-one seems to be listening.

Have a good weekend.

Always a bit worrying when both sides rush to claim victory.

The view of the Charity Commission of England & Wales can be found here.

The view of the Independent Schools Council can be found here.

The Upper Tax Tribunal ruled that private fee-paying schools can qualify as charities if their trustees offer poor students more than “token” help with fees.

The lack of clarity by the Tribunal and the reaction of each side shows that this is not the end of the matter.

A similar debate is taking place in Scotland between the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and the Scottish Council of Independent Schools.

Once in a while politicians do something that is without question the right thing to do.  This is one such case.

More than 3,500 adult carers and young carers from across Scotland are set to benefit from a funding package for short breaks.

Fifty-eight organisations have been offered a share of almost £954,000 for a variety of short breaks projects. This includes 14 groups who help carers purchase their own breaks.

The funding will support young carers and adult carers who care for disabled children, people with dementia, mental health problems and other long-term conditions, substance misuse problems, adults with learning disabilities and adults with physical disabilities.

More information can be found here.

Firstly to Australia.  Australia’s House of Representatives has narrowly voted in favour of the Clean Energy Bill.  The Bill was passed by 74 votes to 72.   The tax will be introduced on 1 July next year.  The Australian Government plans to tax the carbon pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels including coal and petroleum.   The closeness of the vote and George Osborne’s comments at his party conference show how far the carbon tax debate has still to run.

Rafael Nadal has defended his decision not to compete next year at the traditional pre-Wimbledon warm up at Queens.  It was also recently reported that Usain Bolt is not going to compete in the UK before the London Olympics.   They each claim that if they compete they would be out of pocket due to UK tax rules.  Under UK tax rules foreign sports stars are taxed on a proportion of their entire global income rather than the just the money they earn in the UK.

The UK Government shows no sign of changing these rules although it is worth remembering that a concession was made for the 2010 Champuons League final at Wembley.  The concession, announced in the 2010 budget was a key condition laid down by UEFA for staging the final.  A similar concession is in place for next year’s Olympics.  What though of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow?

More bad publicity for HMRC.  Dave Hartnett, permanent secretary for tax at HMRC is facing demands to quit after being accused of lying over a deal that spared Goldman Sachs a multimillion pound tax bill for its bankers’ bonuses. The article from the Independent can be found here.

The most interesting fiscal powers announcement this week comes from Wales.   The Secretary of State for Wales, Cheryl Gillian has announced the composition of a commission to assess the way that Wales is funded.  This could result in the Welsh Assembly being granted borrowing and tax raising powers.   The Commission will be led by Paul Silk, a former clerk to the Welsh Assembly.  The fact that I have mentioned Wales gives me the chance to wish them all the best tomorrow.

The announcement that BP is to to go ahead with a £4.5bn project off Shetland re-ignited the debate over the UK Government’s recent decision to raise the supplementary tax on North Sea oil production from 20% to 32%.  Claim and counterclaim over how much oil is left or whose oil this is will no doubt continue in the run up to the independence referendum.  The amount of coverage that this announcement received shows how important the oil industry is to the UK economy and in particular the tax take for the UK Treasury.

And finally, a little bit of good news from Europe.  The European Commission has published a report showing that EU member states’ tax revenues are rising again after a marked fall in 2008 and 2009.

Have a good weekend.

Excellent article in the Law Gazette on the withdrawal of medical treatment.   The article refers to the recent case in which the Court of Protection in England ruled against the withdrawal of medical treatment.  In that case the person was in what is termed a “minimally conscious state” and not a “vegetative state” as in previous cases.

The article can be found here.   The case report can be found here.

The OPG has put updated Inventory & Management Plan Forms on its website.

The updated forms can be found here.

Tax stories from all four home nations and Denmark this week.

I will though start with some facts and figures.  It was reported this week that the average pensioner household paid £5,124 in tax over the past year.  That means the average UK pensioner household pays out 27% of its income to HMRC.  That is a combination of direct and indirect taxes which add up to an annual tax bill of more than £34 billion.   Further evidence of how large a contribution this age group contributes to national and local government finances.

Now to Wales and the Welsh Government’s introduction of a plastic bag tax.   Anyone who wants a plastic container to carry their shopping in will need to pay a 5p levy for the privilege.  They will also need to pay for plastic packaging for fast food items.

Staying with fast food but moving to Denmark.  Denmark has introduced what is believed to be the world’s first “fat tax”.  They have introduced a surcharge on foods that are high in saturated fat.  Butter, milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed food are now subject to the tax if they contain more than 2.3% saturated fat.  The UK Government are also considering such a tax the Scottish Government are not.  The  Scottish Government plans to work with manufacturers instead.

Now to Edinburgh and the latest local politician to suggest a tax change.   This time it is Colin Keir SNP MSP for Edinburgh Western.  His idea is to cut VAT rates for the tourism and golf services industry and as presently happens in Ireland.

There were this week a number of interesting announcements on additional tax powers for the Scottish Parliament.  The Scottish Government has called for the revenue from alcohol duty to be devolved to Scotland.  That makes sense when you consider that health is already devolved.  What though of tobacco duty?  Also why is the Scottish Government simply asking for this revenue to be assigned to it but not the power to vary duty rates or control over the underlying law?  I suspect that this “request” will receive the same reaction from the UK Government as the call for control of corporation tax and the Crown Estate.

More interesting was the call from a group of newly elected Tory MPs for the Scottish Parliament to have full tax raising powers in a book billed as the way forward for the Conservative Party.

Mixed news for Northern Ireland on fiscal powers this week.  Looks as if it will be given some Air Passenger Duty powers but that the devolving of some restricted powers over corporation tax will be at best delayed.

Few surprises at the Tory conference.   George Osborne confirms the English Council tax freeze and that there will be no temporary tax cuts.  This almost certainly means no change to the 50p rate of income tax or VAT.   The Tories also confirmed their opposition to a European Union financial transactions tax.  Iain Duncan Smith did though go off message when he called for breaks for the poor and married couples.

For those interested in the Scotland Bill I would recommend that you look out for coverage of the evidence given to the Scotland Bill committee by Martin Sime of the SCVO.

The premise of the evidence is that the Scotland Bill will be irrelevant before it is implemented.  I have blogged on this issue before but from a tax perspective.

The Scotland Bill includes an income tax proposal that is overly complicated.  In addition the Scotland Bill fails to link up devolved responsibilities such as the environment with associated environmental taxes.  Or health and alcohol and tobacco duties.  Or succession law and inheritance tax.  Or giving OSCR sole responsibility for charity registration.  Devolving these and other similar taxes and duties, and certain specific tax powers, would have given the Scottish Parliament a greater number and more wide-ranging set of economic levers.   It would also simplify government both in Scotland and the rest of the UK.

More information on the evidence to be given by SCVO can be found here.

The Scottish Government has published its proposals for a new national mental health strategy.   The poposals seek to improve mental health services and in particular the Scottish Government are looking for views on the direction of travel for the next 4 years.

The consultation can be found here.