Darling’s daring tax reforms

Much of the press, many small business owners, some unions, and even three Dragons’ Den judges are vehemently opposed to Darling’s tax overhaul. Tim Bennett finds out why.

What's happened?

Alistair Darling has announced a major overhaul of the capital-gains-tax (CGT) regime. The rate of tax on profits from asset sales by individuals and trusts will be a flat 18% from 6 April 2008 whereas the current system has rates of up to 40%, depending on your circumstances. He also wants to scrap the indexation allowance, introduced in 1982, which means tax is only due on gains above the rate of inflation; and also taper relief, a Gordon Brown initiative from 1998, which reduces tax paid by those who hold assets for lengthy periods. About the only thing that survived what the Financial Times called "the biggest change to taxation since the late 1990s" is the annual amount of profit exempt from this tax, currently £9,200.

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Tim graduated with a history degree from Cambridge University in 1989 and, after a year of travelling, joined the financial services firm Ernst and Young in 1990, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1994.

He then moved into financial markets training, designing and running a variety of courses at graduate level and beyond for a range of organisations including the Securities and Investment Institute and UBS. He joined MoneyWeek in 2007.