Revenue to review S660
The Inland Revenue has 'recognised the problems' of Section 660 and finally agreed to carry out a guidance review on the controversial and unclear 'husband and wife' tax.
Link: Industry urges S660 guidance
Anne Redston, tax partner at Ernst & Young and chairman of the personal tax committee at the Chartered Institute of Taxation told Accountancy Age that Revenue deputy chairman David Hartnett had been in ‘listening mode’ earlier today (Thursday) and was prepared to review the situation.
‘The Revenue said it would go back and review the guidance. This needs to be done as quickly as possible because of self assessment returns and they definitely understood that’, said Redston.
‘We hope the outcome will tell us more about when people are caught under the law or not and we hope to have that in around a month’s time’, she added.
Redston said that the Revenue refused to comment on the recent case involving Geoff and Diana Jones of Arctic Systems who lost out to the taxpayer when two special commissioners returned a split verdict over S660.
The S660 group included Nigel Eastaway, chairman of the CIOT and Mark Lee, chairman of the ICAEW tax faculty.
Redston added that the professional bodies were united in their calls for clarity over the 70 year-old tax and that they spoke with ‘one voice.’