4 ms·

I mean, the UK is literally changing the law to require them to do it because they felt that the companies weren't paying their fair share, so it seems like the

• chrisseaton 8y ago
  The fact that they changed the law rather than used the existing one makes it crystal clear that it was legal.
  • Marazan 8y ago
    Not really. The GAAR makes many "technically legal" schemes illegal. But it requires expensive and long litigation by Hmrc to prove it. Passing a new law short circuits the process.
    • tomatocracy 8y ago
      And the GAAR also by their own admission covers rather less than you imply anyway which is why litigation is likely to be involved. The official guidance[1] specifically cites circumstances which are not (in HMRCs view) caught by it (eg nominating a different residence every month as your primary residence in order to benefit from additional reliefs which extend for longer than the month on multiple properties and effectively completely avoid capital gains tax) which you might have thought would be caught. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tax-avoidance-general-anti-abuse-rule-gaar https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tax-avoidance-gene...
  • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Not really. Often new laws are simply more specific, making prosecution easier. For example a "noise nuisance" law covers a subset of offences that a "breech of the peace" law does. Other subsets could be covered by blasphemy laws, profanity laws, etc.. Along with being more specific it's a chance to declare a moral position and appear to be doing new things to protect citizens/subjects.