Tax enthusiasts are having a busy 2017. Despite the first Finance Bill being much shortened, it now looks like 2017 will see the publication of three Finance Bills and some major changes to UK legislation featuring in at least one of the Bills.

After being delayed before Parliament’s summer recess, the second Finance Bill of this year, Finance Bill 2017–19, was finally published on Friday 8 September. Explanatory notes were also published.

If the Bill follows the normal timetable, Royal Assent is likely to be in December with substantive enactment before the end of November. However, the legislative timetable for the Bill’s passage may be accelerated if the Government would prefer it to be passed before the Autumn Budget.

The draft Finance Bill 2017–19 sets out the framework for VAT reporting under Making Tax Digital, confirming that the rules will not be in place before April 2019 while those who fall below the VAT threshold will not have to digitally report.

A number of other major legislative changes also feature in the bill, some of which have retrospective effect and will apply, once the Bill is enacted from 1 or 6 April 2017.

The reforms to corporation tax loss relief, the new deemed domicile concept for inheritance tax, income tax and capital gains tax and legislation restricting deductions for corporate interest all feature in the second Bill.

In a written statement to the House of Commons, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury announced that 2017 will see a third Finance Bill, to be published after the Autumn Budget.

We now also know that the first Autumn Budget will be held on Wednesday 22 November. And, in the same traditional move which preceded Spring Budgets, a number of draft clauses for the third Finance Bill of 2017 were published last month on 13 September together with related policy papers. The draft clauses are available for consultation until 25 October, with the final contents of the Bill subject to confirmation at Autumn Budget 2017.

Draft legislation and policy papers in various areas has also been published as follows:

• Details of a measure introducing HMRC powers to register and de-register master trust pension schemes and schemes for dormant companies have been published.
• A policy paper on Offshore trusts: anti-avoidance has been published
• Further secondary and tertiary legislation on income tax and VAT in the context of Making Tax Digital has been published for comment
• Tackling disguised remuneration – avoidance schemes deals with further changes to tackle disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes including the close companies’ gateway and new information requirements for the loan charge
• Termination payments: removal of foreign service relief removes foreign service relief as it applies to income tax applicable to employment termination payments and introduces a residency test
• A tax information and impact note has been published which extends an existing exemption for compensation payments to those paid by the new Infected Blood Schemes