Hannah Bignell, Trainee Solicitor authored this blog: I am a trainee solicitor at Fieldfisher and recently had the opportunity to attend the 14th Employee Ownership Association Annual Conference in Birmingham together with colleagues from the firm wide Fieldfisher Employee Ownership team. I found this conference very engaging and informative. Before attending, I understood the basics of employee ownership structures from speaking to colleagues at Fieldfisher, particularly the employee ownership trust model. However, I did not fully grasp the extent of the benefits of this structure for employe ..read more

A conference held on 27 September 2019 in London commemorated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. Organised jointly by The Gandi Foundation and Brahma Kumaris (UK), it explored a range of themes related to Gandhi’s thought and life. In particular, it covered the non-violent resolution of conflict, climate change and modern economic models. Fieldfisher partner and employee ownership expert Graeme Nuttall OBE spoke on the significance of the employee ownership trust (“EOT”) controlled company as a modern economic model. His introductory comments are set out below. “There is a b ..read more

Until now, non-UK residents have been subject to tax on capital gains only in respect of UK dwellings.  With effect from April 2019, gains arising from disposals of all UK land will be subject to CGT or corporation tax.   The main provisions can be summarised as follows:  1.  Assets coming into charge under the new regime will be re-based to April 2019. 2.  For a company with at least 75% of its gross assets comprising UK land, the charge to tax is extended to a disposal of shares in the company by a substantial shareholder.  A shareholder who has held at least 25% of the shares, at any time i ..read more

In the 2018 Budget, the government announced plans to consult on a new 1% SDLT surcharge on non-UK residents buying residential property in England and Northern Ireland. The consultation document has now been published.  The consultation will run until 6 May. The surcharge will be legislated for in a future Finance Bill.  Key features of the proposed regime are as follows: The surcharge will be an addition of 1% to all existing rates for the purchase or letting of dwellings by a non-UK resident. Although the surcharge only applies to dwellings in England and Northern Ireland, the test for whet ..read more

Over the last 12 months, HM Revenue & Customs ("HMRC") has ramped up the rhetoric on tax fraud - and also gained further civil powers to tackle it. While HMRC's Connect system has been cross-referencing data from government databases since 2010 (and from social media since no later than 2013), September 2018 saw a reminder when HMRC's published Criminal Investigation Policy was updated with a new section on the monitoring of 'open source' material (i.e. records publically available online). HMRC say they will: "[…] observe, monitor, record and retain internet data which is available to any ..read more