Finance Bill — New Clause 7 — Review of Anti-Tax Avoidance General Anti-Abuse Rule — 17 Apr 2013 at 21:57

The majority of MPs voted not to require a post-implementation review of the general anti-abuse rule aimed at tackling tax avoidance.

This vote occurred while MPs were considering the Finance Act[1][2]. The text of the rejected amendment which was the subject of the vote stated:

  • (4) The Chancellor shall provide a report to Parliament within two years of the passing of this Act, as part of a wider post-implementation review, into the scope of GAAR, the application of the double reasonableness test and its deterrent effect.

HMRC guidance on the "double reasonableness test"[3] states:

  • This requires HMRC to show that the arrangements “cannot reasonably be regarded as a reasonable course of action”. This recognises that there are some arrangements which some people would regard as a reasonable course of action while others would not.
  • The ‘double reasonableness’ test sets a high threshold by asking whether it would be reasonable to hold the view that the arrangement was a reasonable course of action. The arrangement falls to be treated as abusive only if it would not be reasonable to hold such a view.

This would have added the above clause to the end of clause 203[3] (which appears on p118 of the Bill), titled "General anti-abuse rule".

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Debate in Parliament | Source |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con237 (+1 tell) 0078.0%
DUP0 3037.5%
Green0 10100.0%
Lab0 210 (+2 tell)082.5%
LDem39 (+1 tell) 0070.2%
PC0 30100.0%
SNP0 60100.0%
Total:276 223079.0%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

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