UK Wants to Drop Bar to Punish Aggressive Corporate Tax Planning

The UK tax authority wants to strengthen laws to combat aggressive tax planning by large businesses, an official said Monday.

Barriers in the UK’s special measures regime, introduced in 2016, prevent His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs from acting against large businesses taking aggressive tax positions, Nicole Newbury, director of large business compliance at HMRC, told the UK’s Public Accounts Committee.

HMRC was legally empowered in 2016 to place large businesses under special measures, allowing it to apply sanctions for continued poor behavior. However, HMRC has never used this power, despite identifying three cases where the tax authority believed special ...