I was looking at HMRC's guidance on transfers of long term business. What struck me was how short the guidance is, just seven pages which is roughly a quarter of section 16A of the LAM. To some extent the brevity is welcome I think it illustrates the point that now that FSA returns aren't the basis for tax computations the need for complicated anti avoidance is reduced.
Another reason for the brevity is that there's very little by way of proper guidance, it's really just a restatement of the general intention of the legislation. In particular although we have new anti avoidance provisions in FA 2012 132 these are covered in three brief paragraphs. I suppose it is difficult for HMRC to comment on how it will apply anti avoidance provisions in practice until it sees some part vii transfers under the new rules but hopefully something more useful will be issued in due course.
Looking at this guidance it seems very clear to me that the only proper solution is for HMRC to issue a proper new LAM.
The guidance can be found at
And my previous muttering on the need for a proper LAM are in the post of 24th June.
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