Part of Finance Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 5:15 pm ar 12 Mehefin 2012.
This relates only to UK connected companies, if that provides clarification. For the reasons I have outlined, the Government believe that this is a wholly exceptional circumstance in which action to change legislation with full retrospective effect is justified.
I appreciate the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley. It is right to make it clear that retrospection should be used only in wholly exceptional circumstances. He asked if I could set out in more detail the Government’s position on retrospection. We set out our position in the protocol on unscheduled announcements of changes in tax law, which was published in “Tackling tax avoidance” at Budget 2011. The protocol makes it clear that the deterrent effect of making changes with immediate effect needs to be balanced against the need to maintain the UK tax system’s reputation for predictability, stability and simplicity. It states:
“In particular, changes to tax legislation where the change takes effect from a date earlier than the date of announcement will be wholly exceptional.”
As we said in our announcement of 27 February 2012, we believe this is a wholly exceptional circumstance and that retrospective action is therefore justified. In this case, a very large amount was at stake, a part of the tax code that had been repeatedly exploited was involved, and the bank was in breach of its obligations under the banking code of practice. For fullness of disclosure, I should add that the Chancellor made it clear in his 2012 Budget statement that we are ready to take retrospective action if there are continued attempts to avoid stamp duty land tax, but I put on record that we will take that step only in wholly exceptional circumstances.
My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley brought his experience to bear on a point about a restriction of the use of debt buy-backs preventing company rescues. This measure would not prevent company rescues. HMRC has made clear in draft guidance that none of the current exceptions to the tax charge that arises on the acquisition of debt by connected companies have changed. The arrangements under which HMRC gives clearances in company rescue situations, such as debt equity swaps, will continue to apply. The retrospective legislation combats specific avoidance arrangements that were designed to avoid a tax charge that would otherwise have arisen and, as statements made when the legislation was last amended made clear, that should have arisen. The new provision will tax the full economic profit that a group makes when impaired debt of a debtor company becomes held by a connected company and is then released.
To return to the clause, in general it makes three changes to the existing legislation. First, when companies with existing debt become connected, the calculation of the deemed release is amended to prevent avoidance. In response to comments on the draft legislation, published on 27 February, clause 23 also amends the wording of the current legislation to iron out a feature that sometimes gives rise to queries about its application in the context of the loan relationships rules on connected companies.
Secondly, it introduces a targeted anti-avoidance rule, to prevent future tax avoidance in this area. Thirdly, to ensure that the particular avoidance scheme would not succeed, it introduces a retrospective provision to counter the contrived arrangements used by the scheme. This an appropriate point for me to address, in detail, the amendment that would remove subsections (8) to (12) of the clause, which introduce the retrospective element.
I have referred to the protocol on unannounced tax changes, and the Government have set out their policy on the area. The present case is an exceptional one, and, for the three reasons that I have outlined, we believe that it is justifiable to use retrospective legislation.
The Government are clear that aggressive tax avoidance schemes are unacceptable. The use of retrospective legislation demonstrates that we will not tolerate aggressive attempts by companies to abuse the tax system with contrived arrangements, to avoid paying their fair share. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley will be persuaded—having probed very effectively and shown all the diligence that one would expect, which no doubt he will demonstrate on the Information Committee in years to come—to withdraw his amendment. I hope that the clause will stand part of the Bill.