TAX NEWS: Lords batter Brown over trust changes. By Nichola Ross Martin
The Lords has criticised Gordon Brown's changes to the trust regime as a "back of an envelope job"
The House of Lords economic affairs committee said the way the rules had been introduced without consultation was not "the way in which tax changes should be made".
New tax rules on family trusts were announced in this year's budget and came as a massive shock to the industry, which replied by saying that over 1 million people would be forced to rewrite their wills and their inheritance planning.
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Hi Simon, here is a link:
To the press release:
parliament.uk/lords_press_notices/pn230606fb.cfm
To the report:
/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/204/20402.htm
I think your link:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldeconaf.htm
should have been this - see the top two reports.
Thank heavens for the Lords, at least we have some sensible analysis.
committees
The House of Lords subcommittee on the Finance Bill has not produced a report. It has had a number of meetings - see parliament.uk/pa/ld/lduncorr.htm#econ
My problem is when what is actually party political point scoring is attributed to an independent committee !
Incompetence personified.
Written on the back of an envelope? What a compliment! There has never been a UK government of such ineffable incompetence in the past three centuries. Instead of trying to extract more and more taxes from an ever diminishing taxpayer base, they should be taking a long hard look at their procurment disasters such as the onrunning sagas of their IT programmes. Too late, over budget and don't work as designed.
Sorry for the rant but I've had enough of being messed about by HMR&C computer systems.
house of lords ?
The headline to this says that the House of Lords said these changes were a "back of an envelope job". The article makes it clear that this quote comes straight from the Conservative spokesperson in the House. They would say that, wouldn't they ?
Parliament Website
Does anyone know where to find the report? I found the Committee and sub-committee but no record of their proceedings.
Feed Me!
Don't care where the food comes from or who I have to hurt in the process just as long as it fills the Treasury's belly and powers my party's radical agenda.
Gordon didn't think this one up himself, one of our quality civil servants did and he stupidly rubber stamped it.
Trouble is, when Gordon's disappears to the back benches after the next general election those quality civil servants will still be in place with another get rich quick scheme.
Lets hope the new chancellor will be somewhat brighter and better informed.
sensible
Nicola - thanks for the link which i had obviously failed to find !
I see that what the committee said was this
"We remain concerned however at the extent of the disagreement between HMRC and the professional bodies and the accompanying lack of certainty, and at the possible implications for the costs for ordinary family business. It seems likely that a lot of people will have been needlessly upset and worried by the clumsy handling of this issue on both sides: by the Government, who failed to spell out what it was really aiming to do and who would or would not be affected, and by the professions who, for their part, may have indulged in exaggerated scare-mongering."
THat seems to me fair !