Chancellor Rachel Reeves visited the US and Canada last week, and during an interview with Bloomberg was asked whether she was considering increasing capital gains tax.
She replied: “We’ve got a budget on October 30 and we will set out our policy then, but it’s always important when you’re deciding tax policy to strike the right balance. Of course, you need to bring in the revenue to fund public services, but we’ve also got to grow the economy. I won’t do anything that makes it harder to achieve that economic growth and prosperity.”
The Chancellor has ruled out raising VAT, income tax rates or National Insurance rates, but this has added speculation on whether other taxes will be increased.
Last year, Ms Reeves told the BBC that she had no plans to increase capital gains tax. However, since the Labour party came into office, she has claimed that there is a £22 billion shortfall in public finances this year. She has identified some savings, but it seems likely that the gap will also be plugged by raising taxes somewhere.
In addition to changing the rates of capital gains tax, the government could also remove some reliefs to increase their tax take.
Whether there will be any changes to capital gains tax, and what they might be, is difficult to predict, but it may be telling that Ms Reeves refused to rule it out.
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See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9v880z470lo
HMRC have opened a consultation, ‘Modernising the taxation of distributions and repayments of capital from companies’. They are seeking views on proposals to modernise the tax framework dealing with distributions made by companies to shareholders who are individuals or trusts.
Investors representing over $3 trillion of assets under management from across North America, the Gulf, Asia and Australia will participate in InvestConnect, a new UK investment fund. Aimed at connecting the UK’s nations and regions to trillions of pounds of global capital, the new platform was developed in consultation with professional investors, government partners and the UK's nations and regions.