Draft Statutory Instrument
for consultation - The Offshore Funds (Tax) Regulations 2008 - May 2008
The attached partial draft regulations are published for comment and to show the intended use of the powers in clauses 38 and 39 of the Finance Bill 2008.
The policy background to these draft regulations can be found in two recent HM Treasury (HMT) publications:
- Offshore funds: a discussion paper (October 2007)
- Offshore funds: next steps (March 2008)
These documents can be accessed on the HM Treasury website.
These partial draft regulations are intended to give effect to the policy set out in those documents. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) welcomes comments on this set of partial draft regulations, in particular whether the draft regulations achieve the policy intentions as set out in HMT’s publications.
These partial draft regulations do not change the definition of an offshore fund. The Government will continue discussing a new characteristics based definition with industry and will introduce this in Finance Bill 2009.
An explanatory commentary is included within the partial draft regulations to show how they derive from current legislation or from the HMT documents mentioned above.
In some cases there is simply a marker with, if relevant, an outline of what the regulation might contain.
The partial draft regulations do not cover the following points which will be included in the next draft:
- The issue of transitional arrangements for funds which currently have distributing status under the existing offshore funds regime. Government welcomes views on what transitional arrangements should be made.
- Arrangements for taking equalisation into account in calculating the reported income which will be based on current rules.
Please note that the numbering of regulations in this draft is a temporary system used for drafting purposes.
The Government invites stakeholders to comment on the points above and
the attached partial draft regulations. Comments should be sent by Friday
11 July 2008 to:
CT & VAT, 3rd Floor
100 Parliament Street
London
SW1A 2BQ
Tel 020 7147 2560
Email John Buckeridge
It is anticipated that following comments received on these partial draft regulations, a full draft set of regulations will then be published for further comment.
