The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW) has put forward practical recommendations to help soften the impact of chancellor’s Alistair Darling’s proposed changes to the capital gains tax (CGT) system.
‘We support tax simplification and recognise that the government has had previous discussions simplifying CGT and taper relief, Frank Haskew, head of the ICAEW tax faculty, said. ‘However, we think that the proposed CGT reform announced in the PBR requires more thought, in particular because simplification needs to be balanced against a number of other factors.’
ICAEW would like to see consideration given to adopting one or more of the following options:
• Deferring the start date from 6 April 2008 to 6 April 2009 to permit more
time for taxpayers to reorganise their affairs
• Preserving taxpayers’ entitlements to existing reliefs so that they are not
unduly disadvantaged
• Considering a possible exemption on gains for smaller businesses similar to
the former retirement relief
• Considering a possible rebasing of CGT, for example to 31 March 2002
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