The government has announced a retrospective measure for non-UK resident owners of UK residential property, which removes a double tax charge on capital gains tax (CGT), applying for disposals from 6 April 2015, when owners have received higher or lower bills than expected
As a result of errors on the CGT computations provisions required by non-residents on the disposal of UK residential property the government has confirmed that it has introduced measures to deal with the issue.
This means that with retrospective effect from 6 April 2015, a double charge that occurs in some circumstances will be removed, and taxpayers who have been sent higher than expected CGT settlement bills will be able to settle the issue with HMRC.
A Treasury spokesperson told Accountancy: 'It is a small measure but at present there are anomalies in the system so that a small number of people get bills that are too high or too low. Those that have received a higher tax bill will be able to settle the amount and it will be backdated to April 2015; if the tax bill was lower, the new measure will be effective from 25 November.
'There is a fairness element here to make sure that non-UK residents are treated in the same way as UK residents.'
In the continual move to give HMRC additional powers, the UK tax authority will be given powers to prescribe circumstances when a CGT return is not required by non-residents and will add CGT to the list of taxes that the government may collect on a provisional basis. This will be legislated in Finance Bill 2016.
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