Finance Bill — New Clause 1 — Report on Impact of Refunding Tax Paid on Income Received via Loans Which Were Unlikley to be Repaid — 1 Jul 2020 at 21:00

The majority of MPs voted against requiring a review into the impact of allowing refunds of tax paid in connection with the receipt of income via loans which were unlikely to be repaid. The refunds relate to loans which would not now be taxed.

MPs were considering the Finance Bill.^[1]

The proposed new clause rejected in this vote was titled: Loan charge: report on effect of the scheme and stated:

• (1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must commission a review, to be carried out by an independent panel, of the impact in parts of the United Kingdom and regions of England of the scheme established under sections 20 and 21 and lay the report of that review before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act.
• (2) A review under this section must consider the effects of the provisions on—
• (a) business investment,
• (b) employment,
• (c) productivity, and
• (d) company solvency.
• (3) A review under this section must consider the fairness with which HMRC has implemented the policy, including whether HMRC has provided reasonable flexibility around repayment plans with the aim of avoiding business failures and individual bankruptcies.
• In this section “parts of the United Kingdom” means—
• (a) England,
• (b) Scotland,
• (c) Wales, and
• (d) Northern Ireland;
• and “regions of England” has the same meaning as that used by the Office for National Statistics.”

The rejected new clause was accompanied by the following explanatory statement from its proposer:

• This new clause would require a review of the impact of the scheme to be established under Clauses 20 and 21.

Clause 20^[2] was titled Repaying sums paid to HMRC under agreements relating to certain loans etc and began:

• (1)The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (“the Commissioners”) must establish a scheme under which they may on an application made to them before 1 October 2021 —
• (a)repay the whole or part of a qualifying amount paid or treated as paid to them under a qualifying agreement, or
• (b)waive the payment of the whole or part of a qualifying amount due to be paid to them under a qualifying agreement.

The tax charged on payments for work or services made in the form of a loan or other form of credit in a way that means it is unlikely to be repaid is known as "The Loan Charge".^[4]

The Bill^[2] provides for no loan charge to be paid in respect of loans made before 9 December 2010. The scheme for repayments set out in clause 20 and 21 was a consequence of this change.

The repayments referred to in clause 20 appear to relate to payments made pursuant to settlement agreements which apply to tax years where the charge no-longer applies or where the use of the tax avoidance scheme was disclosed to HMRC but they did not act.^[5]

• [1] Parliament's webpage on the Finance Bill, Parliament.uk
• [2] Finance Bill as at the time of the vote, Parliament.uk website
• [3] Explanatory notes to the Finance Bill, Parliament.uk website
• [4] "Report and account for your disguised remuneration loan charge", Gov.uk website
• [5] Disguised remuneration: guidance following the outcome of the independent loan charge review, Gov.uk website

Debate in Parliament |