Southern Cross, which operates across the UK, has announced that it is reducing its rent payments and cannot afford to meet its annual rental costs of £230million. Southern Cross has 98 care homes with around 4,000 elderly residents in Scotland.
HM Treasury’s consultation paper on the proposed 10 per cent inheritance tax charity relief is to be published on 9 June.
The UK Chancellor’s Budget proposal, which will come into effect in April 2012, will reduce the rate of inheritance tax from 40 per cent to 36 per cent, if at least 10 per cent of a person’s estate is given to charity.
In his recent Budget, the UK Chancellor announced his decision to abolish 43 tax reliefs. This followed the independent Office of Tax Simplification’s (OTS) March 2011 report reviewing the number and complexity of tax reliefs in the UK tax system. The original report identified 1,042 reliefs.
HM Treasury are now seeking additional evidence on the impacts of removing 36 of these reliefs, and comments on the transitional arrangements that might help to minimise these impacts. The consultation can be found on the HM Treasury website and closes on 31 August 2011.
89 inheritance tax reliefs were identified in the interim report. The consultation recommends that a full review of inheritance tax is undertaken rather than a separate review of the reliefs identified.
Age UK claimed in a report published today that care and support for older people in England has reached breaking point. The report claims that 800,000 people who currently need care receive no formal support from the state or private sector agencies.
A copy of the report can be found here.
Major changes are being made to the computer system used by HMRC to process SDLT returns. As a result, the system will be unavailable from 00:01 on Saturday 25 June until 00:01 on Monday 4 July. It will not be possible to file returns during this period. HMRC are expected to publish further information on this matter in the next few days.
In the meantime they have issued the following documents detailing their plans:
Yesterday was Tax Freedom Day, when people stop working for the state and start working for themselves. Calculated by the Adam Smith Institute, it is three days later this year than last, thanks to the increase in VAT, higher national insurance contributions and lower personal allowances. Yesterday was the 149th day of the year.
Case concerning rights to air conditioning apparatus overhanging a neighbouring property. In 2007 Mr Nikolic bought land neighbouring Compugraphics factory at Eastfield Industrial Estate in Glenrothes. He asked Compugraphics to remove the overhanging pipes, ductwork and supporting stantions (which had been in place since 1971) from his land.
Compugraphics raised an action claiming that either (1) they owned the pipes and were entitled to retain them in place free from interference by Mr Nikolic or alternatively (2) that they had a servitude right to retain the apparatus in place.
An Extra Division of the Inner House found that although the title contained a clear and unambiguous bounding description under which Mr Nikolic owned the solum of the path the apparatus was overhanging, the apparatus which protruded into Mr Nikolic’s airspace was a fixture of the factory which had been conveyed to Compugraphics. The court did not accept that the apparatus could remain in Mr Nicolic’s airspace as of right by virtue of constituting a separate heritable tenement. However, it was possible that Compugraphics had obtained servitude rights by prescription allowing them to retain the apparatus in position.
In coming to this conclusion the court confirmed that Scots law recognises servitude rights of both projection and support. Moreover, the servitude of support was not limited to support between buildings (as is commonly encountered in flatted properties) but could also extend to support by pillars or posts in the ground.
It was also noted as an addendum that s77 of the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003 which provides for a positive servitude of leading pipes over or under land may also assist in resolving the dispute.
The full judgement is available from Scottish Courts here.
All of our property and conveyancing case summaries are contained in the LKS Property and Conveyancing Casebook here.
Sheriff Court case considering use of a common drying green on which Mr and Mrs Duncan erected a fence and created an area for exercising and toileting their dogs. The sheriff had little difficulty in coming to the view that that was an extraordinary and unacceptable use of common property and granted orders requiring the Duncans to remove the fence and also interdicting them from allowing their dogs to exercise, defecate or urinate on the drying green.
The full judgement is available from Scottish Courts here.
All of our property and conveyancing case summaries are contained in the LKS Property and Conveyancing Casebook here.
NATIONAL parliaments in eight European Union countries have come out against the proposal to have a single system for companies based in the European Union to calculate their tax. One parliament, Portugal, is in favour. Those against were the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Sweden, Poland, Malta and Romania. However, the number falls short of the one-third of countries needed to force the European Commission to withdraw or adjust the draft Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Basis (CCCTB) proposal.
The Scottish Government’s call for corporation tax to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament has been boosted by a report by the Northern Ireland Select Committee unanimously recommending that the powers should be devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
