A Finance Act is the headline fiscal legislation enacted by the UK Parliament, containing multiple provisions as to taxes, duties, exemptions and reliefs at least once per year, and in particular setting out the principal tax rates for each fiscal year.
Overview
In the UK, the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivers a Budget speech on Budget Day, outlining changes in spending, as well as tax and duty. The changes to tax and duty are passed as law, and each year form the respective Finance Act. Additional Finance Acts are also common and are the result of a change in governing party due to a general election, a pressing loophole or defect in the law of taxation, or a backtrack with regard to government spending or taxation. However a repeal order can also be made by statutory instrument. The rules governing the various taxation methods are contained within the relevant taxation acts. Capital Gains Tax legislation, for example, is contained within Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992. The Finance Act details amendments to be made to each one of these Acts. The main taxes are Excise Duties; Value Added Tax; Income Tax; Corporation Tax; and Capital Gains Tax.
Excise
are inland duties levied on articles at the time of their manufacture.
The Finance Act 1910 resulted in a significant net increase in taxation, and it also requisitioned a survey dubbed by right-wing journalists the "Lloyd George's Domesday land-survey", in particular entailing the 1910–1915 valuation maps. Each property and related right under and over land in England and Wales was surveyed and valued, so Increment Value Duty based on land value could be levied when any property was sold. The initial rate was 20% of the increase in land-value between the date of the survey and the date of sale. Exemptions included farmland and plots smaller than. This tax was substantively altered by the repeal of s. 67 by the Finance Act 1920 which superseded it. As part of the survey, landowners had to fill in a form, and the resulting records are extremely useful for local history. The records today consist of:
working maps
valuation maps
valuation books
field books.
The valuation maps and books are kept in local record offices, and the other items are in the National Archives at Kew, London.
Finance Act 1920
This included a new "Duty on licences for mechanically propelled vehicles", repealed "customs duties on motor spirit and motor spirit dealers licence duties", and introduced "Provisions as to spirits used for generating mechanical power" along with other provisions related to income tax and tax on alcohol.
This Act shortly before the 2010 United Kingdom general election, passed as set out by the Labour Party adjusted the rates of the main taxes, in particular introducing on income tax the 50% 'additional rate' band. The Act also reversed a prospective rise enacted in the Finance Act 2007 of the inheritance taxnil rate band threshold from £325,000 to £350,000 which would have applied from 6 April 2010, thus, emphasising a degree of redistribution, the tax instead continues to apply to death estates that do not benefit from any exemptions and consist of a property valued at 25% above the national average.
Finance (No. 2) Act 2010
This Act of 27 July 2010 under the Coalition Government reduced the headline rate of Capital Gains Tax to 18%. The Act increased the general rate of VAT from 17.5% to 20%.
Finance (No. 3) Act 2010
Enacted on 16 December 2010 this Act extended foster care relief, extended the applicability of venture capital schemes to companies with a "permanent establishment" in the UK "in financial health", modified the meaning of "distribution" in the Corporation Tax Acts, addressed the income tax treatment of seafarer's income, adjusted treatment of REITs:, modified rules as to EEA/UK consortium claims for group relief, introduced first-year allowances for zero-emission goods vehicles, adjusted for VAT purposes treatment of non-business use of business assets, amended penalties for failure to make payments on time and returns on time, proceduralised recovery of overpaid stamp duty and petroleum revenue tax, modified compliance checks as to excise duties, and clarified the tax treatment of asbestos compensation settlements in relation to the three main taxes.
Full title of the act including preamble and enacting formula
