Stamp Duty Land Tax

Mr Gregory Campbell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will consider reducing the level of stamp duty land tax; [170612]

(2) if he will consider increasing the threshold property value for applying stamp duty land tax. [170613]

Mr Gauke: The Chancellor keeps all taxes, including stamp duty land tax, under review as part of the Budget process.

Sustainable Development

Laura Sandys: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment his Department has made of the Eurostat resource productivity scale. [169987]

Nicky Morgan: The Government believe that for economic growth to be sustainable, our use of the natural environment must be managed. These natural resources are a vital “capital”, providing raw materials and ecosystems services, that must be valued and protected

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in order to maintain them. Expanding the low-carbon and environmental goods and services sector will help to decouple economic growth from resource use and is a lucrative opportunity for UK businesses.

The Government have established the Natural Capital Committee, which has been tasked with helping the Government better understand how the state of the natural environment affects the performance of the economy and on how to ensure England's ‘natural wealth’ is managed efficiently and sustainably. It is also supporting the Office of National Statistics work on including natural capital in national accounts.

Eurostat produce a resource productivity indicator. This measures the amount of output (GDP) per unit of material input; the higher the number, the more efficiently resource inputs are used. The UK performs well on this measure, considerably outperforming the EU average. The UK's performance has improved over time, with Euros per kg almost 50% higher in 2011 than in 2000.

Tax Avoidance

Graeme Morrice: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment HM Revenue and Customs made of its chances of success in litigation under the law as it stood prior to bringing forward the legislative proposals announced in Budget Note 66 on 12 March 2008. [169785]

Mr Gauke: Due to ongoing litigation between HM Revenue and Customs and users of the wholly artificial tax avoidance scheme that led to Budget Note 66 it would be inappropriate for me to comment on this matter.

Tax Avoidance: British Overseas Territories

Mr Frank Field: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he is taking to tackle tax avoidance in British Overseas Territories. [170146]

Mr Gauke: The Government are fully committed to tackling tax avoidance and continues to take swift and robust action when new avoidance risks are identified. The Overseas Territories themselves are fully committed to ensuring tax compliance. They have also all published action plans setting out the steps they will take to deliver much greater clarity about who really owns, controls, and benefits from companies, and to ensure that this information is available to tax authorities.

The commitments they have made on tax evasion over recent months as part of the UK's G8 presidency represent the biggest ever step forward in the tax transparency of the Overseas Territories. They have all agreed to automatically exchange tax information with the UK and others to tackle those who hide their assets offshore.

Taxation: Charitable Donations

Mr Frank Field: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in an anonymised table the range of charitable gifts donated by the top 1,000 donors and subsequently claimed against tax. [170249]

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Nicky Morgan: There are no plans to publish the information requested. HM Revenue and Customs holds information on the total amounts donated by individual donors on which income tax relief is claimed each year but not on the full range of charitable gifts they make.

There would be a risk of disclosing taxpayer confidential information from publishing the amounts of the donations on which the top 1,000 donors claim tax relief, even if taxpayer details were anonymised.

Taxation: Switzerland

Catherine McKinnell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent assessment he has made of the expected overall yield from the UK-Swiss Confederation Taxation Co-operation Agreement. [169768]

Mr Gauke: It is still too early to be certain how much the UK-Swiss tax Agreement will yield; but it is important to note this is money that without this groundbreaking agreement would largely remain untaxed.

Catherine McKinnell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer with reference to the UK-Swiss Confederation Taxation Co-operation Agreement, how many UK citizens have been identified as moving funds outside that Agreement's jurisdiction prior to it coming into effect on 1 January 2013; whether that number is in line with HM Treasury's previous forecasts; and to which locations such funds have been moved. [169769]

Mr Gauke: The Government have made significant progress on tackling offshore tax evasion, putting tax and transparency at the heart of the agenda for the UK's presidency of the G8, leading on the development of a new global standard in the automatic exchange of information, and reaching groundbreaking deals with a number of jurisdictions to tackle offshore tax evasion, including by establishing disclosure facilities with the Crown Dependencies.

The UK-Swiss Agreement requires the Swiss Government to provide the UK with details of the top 10 most popular destinations for funds moved out of Switzerland before the agreement came into force, and the numbers of UK residents who moved assets to those destinations. This must be supplied by the end of May 2014.

Catherine McKinnell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many UK citizens have been exempted from the UK-Swiss Confederation Taxation Co-operation Agreement owing to their non-domiciled status. [169770]

Mr Gauke: The Government have made significant progress on tackling offshore tax evasion, putting tax and transparency at the heart of the agenda for the UK's presidency of the G8, leading on the development of a new global standard in the automatic exchange of information, and reaching groundbreaking deals with a number of jurisdictions to tackle offshore tax evasion, including by establishing disclosure facilities with the Crown Dependencies.

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No one is exempted from the UK-Swiss Agreement because of their domicile status. Individuals who can demonstrate, through an independent certification process, that they have claimed the remittance basis of taxation are entitled to opt out of the one-off charge for the past if they believe they have no outstanding tax liability.

HMRC has put in place plans to ensure that those who have claimed such treatment under the Agreement have done so legitimately. Any person found to have turned down the opportunity to settle past tax liabilities will be the subject of penalties and possible criminal investigation.

Catherine McKinnell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) with reference to the UK-Swiss Confederation Taxation Co-operation Agreement, how many UK citizens have elected to make voluntary disclosures to HM Revenue and Customs to date; [169771]

(2) how many UK citizens have been identified as the beneficial owners of (a) domiciliary companies or assets and (b) other similar complex structures following the introduction of the UK-Swiss Confederation Taxation Co-operation Agreement. [169772]

Mr Gauke: The Government have made significant progress on tackling offshore tax evasion, putting tax and transparency at the heart of the agenda for the UK's presidency of the G8, leading on the development of a new global standard in the automatic exchange of information, and reaching groundbreaking deals with a number of jurisdictions to. tackle offshore tax evasion, including by establishing disclosure facilities with the Crown Dependencies.

To date HMRC has received details of 18,000 accounts under the UK-Swiss Agreement, which it is matching to UK individuals. HMRC will make contact with each and every individual who opted for disclosure and has already written to over 9,000. Switzerland has until the end of December to provide details in respect of those who wish their account details to be disclosed to HMRC.

Under the terms of the UK-Swiss Confederation Taxation Co-operation Agreement UK taxpayers who elect to pay the withholding tax retain their anonymity in respect of their Swiss accounts and HMRC will not be provided with this information. More will be known about those who opted to disclose as a result of HMRC's contact with the individuals.

Catherine McKinnell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer with reference to the UK-Swiss Confederation Taxation Co-operation Agreement, how many requests the Government have made since 1 January 2013 pertaining to individual accounts; and whether he expects the UK to reach its agreed limit of 500 such requests before the end of the year. [170163]

Mr Gauke: The Government have made significant progress in tackling offshore tax evasion, putting tax and transparency at the heart of the agenda for the UK's presidency of the G8, leading on the development of a new global standard in the automatic exchange of information, and reaching groundbreaking deals with a

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number of jurisdictions to tackle offshore tax evasion, including by establishing disclosure facilities with the Crown Dependencies.

HMRC is working to identify suitable requests for exchange of information under the UK-Swiss Agreement based on its risk assessment processes. The UK expects to take advantage of the maximum number of requests permitted by the Agreement.

VAT

Stephen McPartland: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much VAT was collected by HM Revenue and Customs (a) in total, (b) from the retail sector and (c) from the industrial sector in the latest period for which figures are available. [169851]

Mr Gauke: Information of total VAT cash receipts is published monthly in the Value Added Tax Bulletin on the UK Trade Statistics website.

The latest information that is available is given in the following table:

However, VAT cash receipts cannot be broken down by sector.

Information on the amount of VAT declared on traders' returns can be broken down by sector and this is published in the VAT Statistical Factsheet on the UK Trade Statistics Website:

https://uktradeinfo.com/Statistics/Pages/TaxAndDutybulletins.aspx

Welfare Tax Credits

Stephen McPartland: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the value of tax credits is on salaries up to (a) £10,000, (b) £15,000, (c) £20,000 and (d) above £20,000, respectively. [169983]

Nicky Morgan: There are a variety of factors that influence the amount of tax credits a claimant is eligible to receive, of which income is one. Depending on their circumstances, (e.g. number of children, disabilities etc) claimants on the same income might be entitled to different levels of tax credit payments.

The latest tax credits statistics are available in the HMRC publication ‘Child and Working Tax Credits Statistics Finalised Awards’. They can be found at:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/statistics/fin-main-stats/cwtc-awards.pdf

The Government are taking steps to ensure that spending on welfare is sustainable by making sure that work pays, while also supporting those most in need. It is rewarding work by:

raising the personal allowance to £9,440 and announcing a further increase to £10,000 from April 2014. The combined effect of all personal allowance increases announced by this Government will be to remove 2.7m low income individuals, under 65, out of income tax altogether from April 2014;

developing a new Tax-Free Childcare Scheme to expand support for child care to up to 2.5 million working families; and

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introducing universal credit to make the benefits of work clearer and simpler, with the aim of offering a smooth transition into work and encouraging progression in work.

Working Hours

Mr Frank Field: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate his Department has made of the expected increase in hours of employment resulting from its decision to lift the eligibility bar from 16 to 24 hours. [169556]

Nicky Morgan: No such estimate has been made.

The eligibility rule that couples with children must work 24 hours a week between them, with one partner working at least 16 hours a week in order to qualify for the working tax credit, does not apply if:

one of the couple is aged 60 or over and working at least 16 hours a week;

one of the couple is disabled and working at least 16 hours a week;

one of the couple works at least 16 hours a week, and the other is entitled to carer's allowance—even if they don't get any payments because they receive other benefits instead;

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one of the couple works at least 16 hours a week, and the other is “incapacitated”, an in-patient in hospital, or in prison (serving a custodial sentence, or remanded in custody awaiting trial or sentence).

A single parent needs to do paid work of at least 16 hours a week to qualify for working tax credit.

For more information on qualifying for working tax credit, please refer to:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits/start/who-qualifies/workingtaxcredit/work.htm#1

The Government are making sure that work pays, while also supporting those most in need. It is rewarding work by:

raising the personal allowance to £9,440 and announcing a further increase to £10,000 from April 2014. The combined effect of all personal allowance increases announced by this Government will be to remove 2.7 million low income individuals, under 65, out of income tax altogether from April 2014;

developing a new tax-free child care scheme to expand support for child care to up to 2.5 million working families; and

introducing universal credit to make the benefits of work clearer and simpler, with the aim of offering a smooth transition into work and encouraging progression in work.