• Research Briefing

    Climate change levy

    The climate change levy was introduced in April 2001, charged on electricity, gas, liquefied petroleum gas and solid fuels, when supplied to business. This note gives a short history of the levy, and the impact it has had in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

  • Research Briefing

    The Future For Green Taxes

    This paper sets out to explain environmental taxes and their use in the context of existing and forthcoming policy and legislation; it does not explore the arguments surrounding climate change science. In particular this paper sets out: how green taxes are defined; the arguments for and against their use; Labour government policy on green taxation; the new context for environmental taxation in terms of climate change targets; and proposals for the future use of green taxes.

  • Research Briefing

    Additional personal allowance

    Lone parents, and married parents whose partner was incapacitated, were once entitled to claim the additional personal allowance, while they cared for at least one child. This note gives a short description of this tax allowance and the Government's reasons for its being withdrawn from April 2000.

  • Research Briefing

    Widow’s bereavement allowance

    From 1980 to 2000 widows were entitled to receive a tax allowance - the widow's bereavement allowance (WBA). In April 2000 the allowance was withdrawn as part of a wider reform in state benefits for widows and widowers. This note gives a short history of the WBA, and the efforts of widowers who lost their spouses before the WBA was withdrawn to claim it.

  • Research Briefing

    Landfill communities fund

    Landfill tax is charged on waste disposed at landfill sites. Site operators may fund local community environmental projects, under a scheme allowing them to offset this investment against their tax liability, up to a specified limit. This note gives a short history of the scheme.

  • Research Briefing

    Landfill tax : introduction & early history

    Landfill tax was introduced on 1 October 1996: this country's first tax with an explicit environmental purpose. This note discusses the background to the tax's introduction. Two other notes look at recent developments concerning the tax, and at the landfill tax community fund - a tax credit scheme to reduce the environmental impact of landfill sites.

  • Research Briefing

    Seafarers’ earnings deduction (FED)

    This note discusses this special tax relief for seafarers, before looking at recent concerns about a change in HM Revenue & Customs' approach to claims for this relief from those working in the oil & gas sector.

  • Research Briefing

    Taxing small businesses: recent developments

    This note discusses the reforms to taxing small businesses set out in the 2007 Budget - in particular, the phased increase in the small companies tax rate - before looking at the recent change in the Government's approach, signalled in the 2008 Pre-Budget Report.

  • Research Briefing

    Direct taxes: rates and allowances 2009/10

    This paper sets out the main changes to direct tax rates and allowances announced in the Budget on 22 April 2009. It lists the principal personal allowances which will be available against income tax in the tax year 2009/10, and it outlines the conditions necessary for eligibility for these allowances.

  • Research Briefing

    What happens when prices fall?

    Inflation as measured by the RPI was -0.3% in March 2009, the first time it has been negative since 1960. It is likely to continue to be negative for some months to come in 2009 with possible consequences for pensions, benefits and taxes.

  • Research Briefing

    Income shifting

    This note looks at the Government's recent legislative proposals to prevent 'income shifting' - arrangements used by the main earner in a family businesses to divert part of his income through the business to another person in a lower tax bracket, often their spouse, to mitigate their overall tax bill. These proposals proved controversial, and in the Pre Budget Report in November 2008 the Government confirmed that it was deferring any legislation, but would keep the issue under review.

Total results (page 29 of 36)