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The Finance Bill takes steps to help young people with the cost of living, crack down on tax avoidance and evasion, and protect the environment.

Plans to introduce a Stamp Duty Land Tax relief for first-time buyers, back innovative businesses and crack down on tax avoidance and evasion took the next step forward recently (1 December 2017) as the government published the Finance Bill 2017-18.

The Bill will legislate for tax changes announced at Autumn Budget 2017.

Mel Stride, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said:

The UK must have an economy that is fit for the future and this Finance Bill takes important steps to deliver just that. We are backing the innovative businesses that power our economy, helping our young people to get on the property ladder and making our tax system fairer so that we can continue to fund our vital public services.

This Finance Bill takes steps to benefit young people, helping them with the cost of living and protecting our environment:

• abolishing Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) for first time buyers purchasing properties worth up to £300,000, and reducing stamp duty for those buying properties worth up to £500,000
• helping to protect our environment and make our air cleaner by encouraging manufacturers to produce cleaner cars:
  • increasing by one band the amount of Vehicle Excise Duty new diesel cars pay in their first year
  • increasing existing Company Car Tax diesel supplement by 1%

It ensures our tax system is fair and collects the money we need for our vital public services by:

• removing the indexation allowance – an outdated relief for inflation which provides benefits to companies that are not available to individuals
• clamping down on tax avoidance, evasion, and non-compliance by:
  • closing loopholes in the anti-avoidance rules for offshore trusts, so that people cannot avoid paying UK tax on the benefits they withdraw from their offshore trusts
  • preventing companies from claiming unfair tax relief on their intellectual property
  • reducing online VAT evasion by making online marketplaces take more responsibility for the unpaid VAT of their sellers
  • tackling the use of disguised remuneration
  • ensuring companies are not able to claim relief for losses on the disposal of shares which do not reflect losses incurred by the wider group
  • extending landfill tax to illegal waste sites to crack down on rogue landfill site operators

And it backs the UK’s innovative businesses and improves productivity by:

• doubling the annual amount an Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) investor can get tax relief on to £2m, when investing in knowledge-intensive companies
• doubling the amount of money that knowledge-intensive companies can receive annually through EISs and Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) to £10 million
• stopping tax reliefs from being claimed for low-risk investments, re-directing funds towards the UK’s risk-taking growing companies
• increasing the rate of R&D Expenditure Credit (RDEC) from 11% to 12%, so that companies can receive more support for research and development

Notes to editors

The Finance Bill is published on the parliament.uk website.