Introduction

The Autumn Statement looked very like a mini-Budget, with several major new provisions and a raft of other measures. The key points included the following:

• Residential stamp duty land tax (SDLT) has been restructured with effect from 4 December. Buyers will now pay a rate of duty on the portion of the purchase amount that falls within each band (like income tax).
• The rates and thresholds of SDLT have been adjusted accordingly: there is no tax on the first £125,000 of any residential property transaction, with the top rate at 12% on the slice of value above £1.5 million. Commercial SDLT rates remain unchanged.
• Spouses and civil partners will be able to inherit their deceased spouses’ or partners’ ISAs and ISA allowances for deaths from 3 December 2014.
• The tax treatment of pension annuity payments to dependants will be brought into line with the treatment of ‘flexi-access’ withdrawals. So, if an individual dies before the age of 75, their surviving beneficiary’s income will be tax free.
• Non-domiciled tax payers will have to pay more to be on the remittance basis of taxation. The government is consulting on making a remittance basis election apply for a minimum of three years.
• There are a very large number of anti-avoidance measures, including one to counter tax avoidance by multinational companies that earn profits in the UK but use avoidance techniques to divert these profits offshore. This diverted profits tax will be 25%, applied from 1 April 2015.
• Other measures include freezing fuel duty and the abolition of air passenger duty for children under 12 from 1 May 2015 (and for under-16s a year later).