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Summer Budget 2015
Pensions
Provision for retirement featured again in the Budget.
In the Queen's Speech last year, the Government proposed potentially dramatic changes to local authority pension arrangements to introduce pooling to reduce costs. This summer budget included a slightly milder, The government will work with Local Government Pension Scheme administering authorities to ensure that they pool investments to significantly reduce costs, while maintaining overall investment performance.
There were also announcements regarding the treatment of individuals. The immediate change was the introduction of a "Tapered" annual allowance for high earners. There is also a consultation on more fundamental changes to the taxation of pensions. This can be found here.
The rest of the budget
In view of the extensive cuts, here is a picture of a 16th century amputation saw.
iv) Equity and debt investments in venture capital companies, provided they are intended to be held for a specified period of time.
The government accepts that some of the activities listed above would need to be expanded to cover associated investments and particular situations. Taking the first, for example, the government considers that provision may need to be made for where a controlling equity stake is taken by a series of investment funds acting in concert, and to cover associated debt investments into the underlying company
Option 2 will simply look at the average length of time each individual investment is held regardless of type of asset. If investments on average are held over two years, 100% will be treated as capital gain with a graduated system for shorter holdings.
SDLT treatment of real estate funds
The commitment SDLT reforms for PAIFs and ACSs continues:
As previously announced, the government intends to introduce a seeding relief for Property Authorised Investment Funds (PAIFs) and Co-ownership Authorised Contractual Schemes (CoACSs) and intends to make changes to the SDLT treatment of CoACSs investing in property so that SDLT does not arise on the transactions in units, subject to the resolution of potential avoidance issues. (Finance Bill 2016)
This was announced in last year's Autumn Statement and was covered in our newsletter here.
Picture courtesy of Dr Lindsey Fitzharris (@DrLindseyFitz)...