Legislation in the draft 2013 Finance Bill will be introduced to make the rules on stamp duty land tax (SDLT) more robust at dealing with attempts at tax avoidance.
Under it, individuals involved in a three-party transfer of rights will have to make a land transaction return containing a claim for relief, unnecessary under existing laws.
Goldsmith Williams senior partner Eddie Goldsmith said as the sale of property normally only involved two people, the use of three could be an artificial device to take the transaction outside the boundary of normal rules: “There have been various tax avoidance schemes which have floated around now for a number of years. Some involve offshore companies, some involve third party companies but the common intention of all of those is to avoid paying the top rate of stamp duty.
“The government has been hurt by the ingenuity of the accountants and lawyers coming up with these schemes and the whole idea is to clamp down on them.”
An introduction to the proposals stated: “The transfer of rights rules have frequently featured in attempted avoidance of SDLT. The objective of the proposed reform is to make the rules more clearly robust against attempted avoidance while retaining the commercial benefits of the rules.
“This measure is part of the wider Government programme for tackling SDLT avoidance and making the tax system fairer.”
