Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the corporation tax super deduction on levels of fraud, abuse and tax avoidance relating to corporation tax.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Expenditure on the provision of plant and machinery for leasing is not eligible for the new 130% super-deduction capital allowance, as is the case with other first year allowances such as Enhanced Capital Allowances in Enterprise Zones.
The super-deduction applies to investment on qualifying plant and machinery, including where that plant and machinery is for the purposes of digital transformation.
The Government takes fraud, abuse and tax avoidance very seriously, which is why the Government has taken repeated action at fiscal events to tackle fraud, abuse and avoidance in the tax system.
The super-deduction has been designed to safeguard against those risks. The legislation includes an anti-avoidance provision that applies to counteract arrangements which are contrived, abnormal or lacking a genuine commercial purpose. Further, there are existing rules that exclude connected party transactions from first-year allowances.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to offer a retention incentive to businesses who continue to employ furloughed workers following the withdrawal of the Job Retention Bonus.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The objective of the Job Retention Bonus (JRB) was to incentivise employers to retain employees between November, when the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) was due to end, and the end of January through a £1,000 bonus paid to the employer. However, the subsequent extension of the CJRS to April (now September) allowed employers to retain their staff during that period by covering 80% of the furloughed employees’ wages. Given this further extension to the end of September, the policy intent of the JRB falls away.
The Government remains committed to redeploying a retention incentive at the appropriate time.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether plans in the Winter Economy Plan to give Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans lenders the ability to extend the length of loans from six to ten years (a) have been delivered and (b) are being offered by those lenders.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Following the Chancellor’s announcement at the Winter Economy Plan, to help businesses repay their Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans (CBILS) the Government have amended the CBILS rules to allow lenders to extend loan terms from six to a maximum of ten years where the borrower is in difficulty and lenders judge that the extension will help borrowers repay their loan.
The British Business Bank recently issued guidance to all accredited lenders which allows them to extend the term of existing CBILS facilities beyond 6 years up to a maximum of 10 years. Therefore, lenders are now able to extend the term of existing CBILS facilities to SMEs. An extension can be granted at the discretion of the lender and would be given in line with a lender’s particular forbearance policies.
CBILS term extensions will be offered at the discretion of lenders, unlike the “Pay As You Grow” options for Bounce Back loans. Extensions will be limited to those borrowers that lenders assess are in difficulty and will benefit from the extension, and only for the duration required, meaning that lenders may offer an extension to 7 years, for example, rather than the maximum 10 years allowed.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what alternative communication channels are available to businesses submitting queries to HMRC regarding the movement of goods internationally via The Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight (CHIEF) system.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Businesses can submit queries regarding the movement of goods internationally to the CHIEF operations team by email at chief.operations@hmrc.gov.uk. Businesses are also able to call the Customs and International Trade helpline on 0300 322 9434. There is also a webchat service available on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/customs-international-tradeand-excise-enquiries. Capacity has been scaled up on both teams following the end of the transition period.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether budget representations received by his Department via the budget.representations@hmtreasury.gov.uk email address will be considered as he prepares this year’s budget.
Answered by Jesse Norman
HM Treasury is considering all Budget representations submitted ahead of this year’s Budget, including those submitted via the budget.representations@hmtreasury.gov.uk email address.
The Government’s Budget representations online portal closed on 14 January. This early deadline allows time for representations to be processed and factored into policy-making. Any outstanding representations should be submitted directly to HM Treasury as soon as possible.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of whether easements or forbearance are available to businesses as a result of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement; and whether legal provisions have been communicated to businesses to prevent future prosecution as a result of non-compliance in the initial period following the publication of that Agreement.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Government has provided extensive guidance to traders to support them, including publishing the detailed Border Operating Model to help traders take the necessary steps. Recognising the impact of coronavirus on businesses’ ability to prepare, the UK Government has taken the decision to introduce the new border controls in three stages up until 1 July 2021. From 1 January to 30 June, traders when importing non-controlled EU goods to GB will have the option to make a declaration in their own records at the time of import followed by a supplementary declaration up to 175 days later, which provides traders and intermediaries with more time to prepare.
While HMRC will penalise deliberate non-compliance, they will seek to support those who make genuine errors to get it right. HMRC are carrying out a range of activities to support and educate traders on their obligations during this period, and are promoting the keeping of good records, which will be crucial in minimising losses to error once supplementary declarations are made.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average response time is to businesses submitting queries to HMRC via the Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight (CHIEF) system.
Answered by Jesse Norman
CHIEF has been scaled to 360 million declarations per year as part of HMRC’s preparations for the end of the Transition Period, which equates to 111 declarations per second. The CHIEF system message response time is 5 seconds, which is within the Service Level Agreement for all transactions and is currently performing well.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the data published by HMRC on employers who have claimed through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, how many employers (a) have made a successful application to have their details withheld, (b) have a pending application to have their details withheld and (c) paid back the whole grant before the list was produced.
Answered by Jesse Norman
HMRC published a list of some 743,000 employers that claimed through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme in respect of December claim periods on 26 January 2021. Employers can ask for their details to be withheld if they can show that publication would lead to the threat of violence or intimidation toward the employer or other specified associated persons.
Before this date HMRC received 55 applications from employers to have their names withheld.
17 of these applications were accepted and will not be published. Two applications were rejected and 36 were pending. These employers were removed from the list before publication pending resolution of their applications.
To date no employer that has applied to have their details removed from the list has subsequently chosen to pay back their claim.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what meetings have taken place with the EU on the memorandum of understanding on financial services since 1 January 2021.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Officials have had initial conversations with the Commission about the MoU and we are on track to agree it by March. We will not, however, be providing a running commentary on the status or content of the talks.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of queries to HMRC’s Tariff Classification Service are (a) answered within five working days and (b) remain unanswered after five working days in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Jesse Norman
97.5% of queries are answered within 5 days, with 2.5% of queries being answered after 5 days. The volumes of queries to HMRC’s Tariff Classification Service have nearly doubled in the last six months, and many of these are not classification-related.
The statistics for pre-July 2020 show over 99% of queries were responded to within 5 days.