Areas of Specialisation

Ian has specialised for over forty years in the United Kingdoms indirect tax regime.  A brief synopsis of these taxes follows:

Aggregates Levy

Aggregates Levy is a tax on the commercial exploitation in the UK of rock, sand and gravel (and whatever substance naturally occurs or is mixed with it).  There is one basic rate of £1.60 per tonne.

Air Passenger Duty

APD is charged on passenger transport in an aircraft leaving from the UK to Europe (at £10 per passenger, with a reduced rate of £5 in certain circumstances), or the rest of the world (at £40 with a reduced rate of £20).

Business Rates

Business rates are chargeable on the occupation of non-domestic property.  They are collected by local authorities but they are paid over to central government and are not included in local authority budgets.

Climate Change Levy

CCL is a single stage sales tax on the supply to businesses and the public sector of some forms of energy which are described as “taxable commodities”. It is an environmental tax which aims to encourage the more efficient use of energy in the non-domestic sector.  It distinguishes between different forms of energy by taxing some energy products and not others. “Good” forms of energy are untaxed.  In this way, CCL encourages people to switch to more environmentally friendly forms of energy.  It also treats electricity (a single product) differently depending on how it was produced.

Customs Duty

Customs Duty is charged on the importation of goods into the EU irrespective of where the goods are landed.  A common tariff is in use throughout the Community.  The difficult areas of the duty are in deciding the correct classification of goods, and the application of various reliefs from duty.

Excise Duty

These are UK duties on betting, alcohol, tobacco and hydrocarbon oils.  They are applied on the importation of excise goods, or on the delivery to domestic use from a bonded warehouse, or on the sale of home produced excise goods as appropriate.

Landfill Tax

Landfill Tax is a tax on the disposal of waste by way of landfill.  Its aim is to encourage recycling or more environmentally friendly methods of waste disposal.  Following the 2006 budget, the standard rate of landfill tax was raised to £21 per tonne for degradable material.  The rate for inert material remained unchanged at £2 per tonne.  There is a published intention to raise the standard rate to £35 per tonne in annual incremental stages.

Stamp Taxes

Stamp duty, stamp duty reserve tax and stamp duty land tax are the three stamp taxes.  The first is chargeable on documents, the second on share dealings where there is no document, and the third on land transactions.  Stamp duty land tax replaced stamp duty on land transactions with effect from the 1st December 2003.

Value Added Tax

More commonly known as VAT, the tax is charged on supplies of goods and services in the course or furtherance of a business.  There is a registration limit – a turnover exceeding £60,000, but registration can be on a voluntary basis below this level. The tax was introduced in 1973 as a condition of joining the Common Market and a percentage of the revenue collected from this tax is passed to the EU in Brussels.  The main difficulties are the application of the different rates (17.5% standard, 5% low, zero rate, and VAT exempt). Cross border transactions can also produce difficulties as can supplies to connected parties.  The application of value added tax to land and property transactions can only be described as a minefield to anyone other than an expert in this specialised area of the tax.