Update: 4 September 2018 HMRC would like to notify members regarding a mismatch problem with the SA950 Trust and Estates Tax Return Guide and the SA900 2017/18. The original guidance notes indicated that untaxed interest could be declared at boxes 9.2 to 9.4 when in fact, if box 9.3 is populated with ‘0’, automatic capture… Read More The future of the Trust Registration Service
The UK government has accepted an amendment to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill which requires the Overseas Territories to establish public registers showing the beneficial ownership of companies. The amendment, introduced by Labour’s Margaret Hodge and backed by MPs from all the major parties, commits the government to assisting the Overseas Territories in setting up… Read More UK agrees company public registers for Overseas Territories
STEP was invited to attend the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Private Sector Consultative Forum in Vienna on 23-24 April. The event consisted of several breakout sessions relating to FATF’s global priorities for Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorist Financing (CTF) in 2018. As part of the Forum, Cecil Ferguson TEP, Chair of STEP Bahamas… Read More STEP Bahamas reports to the FATF Forum in Vienna
Entries are open for the 2018/19 STEP Private Client Awards until 31 May 2018. The Awards are widely acknowledged as being one of the premier events in the private client industry calendar. Winning an Award is also a very clear and recognised hallmark of excellence. How then, do you go about winning an Award? Enter… Read More How to win a STEP Private Client Award
Update 4 July 2018: STEP has liaised with the DWP on this technical issue. Please see its response below. If you work in the probate field you will be very familiar with the process of submitting a statutory advertisement, (under the Trustee Act 1925 for England, or the Trustee Act 1958 in Northern Ireland) in… Read More Think you’re covered with a statutory notice? Watch out for a DWP claim
With reporting now underway in the UK for both FATCA (the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) and the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), STEP has been liaising with HMRC on some of the more common reporting issues: 1. The financial institution (FI) has to re-register and is not able to view previous returns on the… Read More Top 10 FATCA/CRS reporting issues
STEP is working with HMRC on a Gift Aid working group set up to explore options to maximise the amount of Gift Aid that charities can claim on donations, together with ways of increasing customer understanding of the system and how it works. HMRC is also investigating opportunities to improve the way that Higher Rate… Read More The Gift Aid tax gap
When the European Union announced its blacklist of jurisdictions judged not to be cooperative on tax in December 2017 it granted several nations in the Caribbean extra time to change their tax systems to meet EU standards. That revised deadline has now passed and the EU’s finance ministers have approved a number of changes. The… Read More EU finance ministers approve changes to blacklist
Update 23 March: HMRC has updated its guidance to clarify that if a penalty is payable for late registration, it will be the burden of the lead trustee and not the agent. We received the following communication from HMRC on 5 March 2018: ‘On 8 December 2017, HMRC announced that while the 31 January 2018… Read More HMRC announces trustees, NOT agents, will be liable for penalties
You might not know it, but New Zealanders have a love affair with trusts. NZ practitioners probably won’t be surprised to hear that there may be anywhere between 300,000 to 500,000 trusts in the country, one of the highest per capita rates in the world. But trusts can lead to unfair outcomes when a relationship… Read More Reviewing the New Zealand Property (Relationships) Act: have your say
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