June 2018 – General Newsletter

CLC Compliance Roadshow London, 20^th June

If you were not able to attend last week’s compliance roadshows in Leicester, Bristol and Manchester, there’s still time to register for this week’s roadshow in London. We’ll be looking at GDPR, AML and our current consultation on rule changes to provide better information for clients.

Book your free place here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/clc-2018-compliance-roadshow-london-tickets-45382772093

Stamp Duty Land Tax avoidance schemes

The Government has recently reported in Spotlight 43 a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (“ASA”) about misleading advertising on Stamp Duty Land Tax avoidance.

HMRC complained to the ASA that a tax avoidance promoter CDP Tax & Wealth – trading as Fiducia Wealth and Tax (“Fiducia”) – was making misleading claims on their website by promoting arrangements that made the payment of SDLT appear optional, contrary to Government guidance.

The ASA agreed with HMRC’s submissions and upheld all five complaints made, ruling that Fiducia’s claims must be withdrawn and not repeated.  HMRC state that the ruling sets a precedent so other avoidance promoters cannot make the same claims about similar arrangements.

HMRC acknowledge that the vast majority of people pay the right amount of SDLT on time but a small minority engage in tax avoidance. The Government is committed to tackling tax avoidance and will always challenge contrived avoidance arrangements to seek to deliver tax advantages that were never intended by Parliament. This includes taking action to address the behaviours of promoters who do not provide clear and accurate information to their clients and working with other organisations such as the ASA and the legal regulators to raise awareness of SDLT avoidance schemes.

HMRC: Lifetime ISA Guidance

Since 6^th April it has been possible for Lifetime ISA customers to use their Lifetime ISA towards the purchase of a residential property if they meet the qualifying conditions. HMRC recently published guidance for Conveyancers regarding first time residential purchases using a Lifetime ISAs. This is a new product and differs significantly from Help to Buy: ISAs with which you may already be familiar. Here is a link to that guidance https://www.gov.uk/guidance/conveyancers-first-time-residential-purchase-with-a-lifetime-isa.

The Bank of England is consulting on a new messaging standard for UK payments

Register here – the deadline for submissions is 18 July 2018

The major UK payments systems (CHAPS, Faster Payments, Bacs) are moving to the global messaging standard for payments, known as ‘ISO 20022’. The coordinated adoption of a single standard across UK payment systems will bring many benefits for payments providers, and for the businesses and households they serve. The design of the standard is consistent with that of many other countries and is a significant step forward in domestic harmonisation.

A number of these proposals could have a positive impact on housing transactions;

• Providing additional tools to mitigate conveyancing fraud

Changes to CHAPS, Faster Payments and Bacs messages may help to prevent conveyancing fraud.

• Prioritisation of housing payments

Being able to identify these time critical payments via the use of purpose codes would allow housing payments to be prioritised in the event of an operational outage

• Improved payment processing speed and reduced delays

Data in ISO 20022 messages will be more structured. This will make the message more machine readable and therefore reduce the need for manual intervention.

To find out more about these proposals and to participate in the consultation please visit the Bank’s website.

Calling probate specialists

The SQA, CLC’s national Awarding Organisation is looking to expand its current provision of outsourced probate specialists to support the delivery of SQA/CLC’s probate qualifications. Anyone interested in finding out more about the types of roles available and the level of commitment needed is invited to contact Jennifer Blain, Qualification Officer SQA on 0345 213 5444, or by email at jennifer.blain@sqa.org.uk.

GDPR Webinar

We’re running a webinar for our licensed community providing advice and guidance and answering your questions about #GDPR 3 July 12.30. Register here: https://lnkd.in/eUW6wwY