{"id":11781,"date":"2023-10-23T15:09:02","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T14:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxpolicy.org.uk\/?p=11781"},"modified":"2023-10-23T16:01:30","modified_gmt":"2023-10-23T15:01:30","slug":"complexity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heacham.neidles.com\/2023\/10\/23\/complexity\/","title":{"rendered":"The reality of tax complexity, and how to fix it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It\u2019s a common complaint that the UK tax system is much too complicated. That complaint is correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the complication is inevitable (modern life is complicated). Some is a response to avoidance. Some is driven by policy choices (e.g. VAT exemptions1<\/a><\/sup>Once you decide restaurants have to charge VAT at 20%, but ingredients should be 0%, you are on a one-way road paved with Jaffa Cakes<\/a> and giant marshmellows<\/a><\/span>). But some of the complication really is unnecessary. I’ll try to demonstrate the problem by taking one tax point that faces many companies investing in the UK, and working through each of the overlapping rules the company has to work through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Judge for yourself how sensible those rules are, and how many are really necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n Let’s pick a simple scenario that’s realistic – indeed very common:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like most businesses, Waystar UK will expect to get UK corporation tax relief for its interest payments.2<\/a><\/sup>I’m only covering interest deductibility and not withholding tax, VAT, or any of the other issues the arrangement would raise.<\/span> Will it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n From a policy perspective Waystar UK absolutely should<\/strong> get tax relief. It would if it borrowed directly from the market, and interposing Waystar Finco should make no difference (but is likely cheaper\/more efficient for Waystar). But that rightly cuts no ice with HMRC – the question is, what do the rules say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many, many, rules that can impact tax relief\/deductibility of interest. Here’s how I’d advise Waystar UK on the main ones, with added commentary on whether each of the rules really still makes sense.3<\/a><\/sup>Like most lawyers, I was truly an expert in a very narrow field, had reasonable knowledge across a wider area, and no more than passing familiarity with anything else. Most Tax Policy Associates content is in areas where I was not truly an expert, and so I am entirely reliant on the generosity and expertise of many current and retired professionals. However the issues discussed in this article are ones where I had direct expertise. They are therefore very relevant to my past clients, but I have no financial relationship with those clients (or my former law firm, aside from my pension).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Transfer pricing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Most countries in the world have “transfer pricing<\/a>” rules. In broad terms, they say that if a company has an arrangement which isn’t on “arm’s-length terms” and it’s taxed as if it was. So if, for example, current market interest rates are 6%, and Waystar UK borrows from Waystar Finco at 10%, then it will only get a deduction for the 6%. This is pretty sensible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UK has a reasonably standard<\/a> implementation of the standard OECD rules<\/a> – they’ve been around for ages and are well understood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Advice:<\/strong> Waystar UK needs to be careful of the rate it borrows under, and should be able to justify that the rate is comparable to the commercial borrowing rate it could get in the market, plus a small commercial fee for Waystar Finco’s role arranging the finance. So if Waystar UK has zero assets it will not be able to borrow anything; if it has \u00a31bn of assets it should be able to support a \u00a3200m loan. The maximum of debt it can support is a question of fact, on which Waystar’s own finance people can form a judgment.4<\/a><\/sup>And create and retain appropriate transfer pricing documentation. They could instruct a transfer pricing expert to prepare a report, but that is probably unnecessary; the more pragmatic approach is for Waystar UK to approach banks and obtain quotes as if it was borrowing itself.<\/span> This will all be a few pages of advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conclusion:<\/strong> These are international rules which the UK can’t realistically change on its own. They work well.5<\/a><\/sup>At least when applied to debt, where it’s easy to establish an arm’s length interest rate. More problematic when it comes to arrangements that have no obvious market equivalent<\/span>. Keep them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Corporate interest restriction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n in 2015, as part of its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)<\/a> project, the OECD created a set of rules which limit the amount of interest deductibility companies can claim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most developed countries adopted some variant on the rules – here’s a helpful map from the OECD<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The basic idea is simple: if you’re borrowing from a genuine third-party, like a bank or the bond market, there’s no restriction. If you’re borrowing from a related party, then you lose deductibility once your interest cost exceeds 30% of your EBITDA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s the EU implementation, part of the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s the UK implementation<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n 134 pages6<\/a><\/sup>I was lazy; this is the original text. It’s since been amended, and is longer<\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That obviously isn’t enough, so there’s also 200 pages of detailed guidance<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You might ask what magic the EU performed in order to squeeze hundreds of pages into just two. There was no magic: it’s just a difference in approach to drafting rules. Civil law jurisdictions generally draft on the basis of broad principles. UK legislation generally provides detailed rules, catering for every possible circumstance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a good argument that the classic common law approach creates certainty of application, which is particularly important in tax. However, by the time you have hundreds of pages of legislation and guidance, certainty has long since left the building<\/a>. Complexity has become<\/strong> a source of uncertainty. And this isn’t a one off – the last decade has seen a series of new rules, each more complex than the last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Businesses struggle to achieve the “obvious” result from the rules. HMRC struggles to apply them. 7<\/a><\/sup>In particular, the “group ratio rule<\/a>” and the “public infrastruture election<\/a>” are incredibly complex in practice and often don’t work as intended.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n We should stop being so dogmatic, and adopt a principles-based approach when that is going to be easier for both business and HMRC to apply. Professor Judith Freedman has written persuasively <\/a>on this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Advice: <\/strong>in theory this should be fine given that Waystar Finco is ultimately borrowing from the market, but the detail will take a significant amount of work. Easily 15 pages of analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conclusion: <\/strong>scrap the UK rules and guidance and adopt a simpler EU-style approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Hybrid mismatch rules<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s a classic way to avoid tax: cunningly craft the Waystar Finco\/Waystar UK loan so that the UK tax system thinks it’s a loan, but the US tax system thinks it’s a preference share, or even doesn’t exist at all. The result? Tax relief in the UK, and either no tax in the US or even, if the CEO<\/a> is greedy, tax credits. The loan is a “hybrid” – taxed differently in two different countries.8<\/a><\/sup>This is a considerable simplification. There are many ways to create hybrids, and certain<\/a> features<\/a> of the US tax system means it is particularly well-suited to the task<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n The hybrid rules were created to stop this kind of thing – they’re another part of the BEPS Project<\/a>. That yielded 39 pages of really difficult legislation<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\nThe scenario<\/h2>\n\n\n
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