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The National Insurance Contributions Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons on Monday 14 June. The opposition parties broadly welcomed the measures in the Bill, but some MPs are concerned about how freeports will operate. The Bill passed unopposed and will go to a Public Bill Committee for consideration on Tuesday 22 June.

The Finance Bill passed through the House of Lords on Tuesday 8 June, with peers raising questions over the extent of HMRC powers, the income tax threshold freeze, the new penalties regime and the use of umbrella companies.

Joanne Walker, technical officer for CIOT and LITRG, and Justine Riccomini, head of taxation with ICAS (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland), take a look at the implications of the recent Scottish Parliament election for the devolved taxes. This article first appeared in the 21 May 2021 edition of Tax Journal and is reproduced here with their permission.

Eligibility for the super-deduction, the impact of freeports and the level of the SDLT non-resident surcharge were also among the issues raised by MPs as the Finance Bill gained its third reading on 24 May and cleared the House of Commons.

Finance Bill 2021 (also known as Finance (No.2) Bill as it was the second Finance Bill to be introduced in the 2019-21 session of Parliament) concluded its House of Commons committee stage on 27 April after 14 and a half hours of debate – nine of them on the floor of the House of Commons and the remainder upstairs in a public bill committee. This was in addition to five hours of debate at second reading.

MPs this week concluded six days of debate by backing a motion offering ‘humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech’, by extension approving the government’s programme for this session of Parliament.

In a guest article for our website, Andrew Dixon, Founder, Fairer Share, shares his thoughts on how to reform property taxation to 'level up' the UK.

Last week’s Scottish Parliament election saw the SNP elected for a fourth successive term in government. But what might the results mean for Scottish taxation over the next five years?

Senior officials from across a number of government departments were brought together by the Public Accounts Committee to discuss fraud and error across government, something this committee has looked at repeatedly, last week (29 April). Fraud and error in relation to government is estimated to amount to between £29 billion and £52 billion annually.

This year’s Chartered Tax Advisers’ (CTA) Address focused on the subject of environmental taxation and the role that tax and other carbon pricing mechanisms can play in helping the United Kingdom and other countries to achieve their net zero carbon ambitions.