The land of our hopes and our hearts

Co-op Legal Services profits rise again

Co-operative Legal Services was established five years ago with a view to creating 150 jobs. It has so far grown to employ over 400 employees, and seen its revenues increase by 22% and profits rise by 3% during the first half of the year.
The Group’s financial statement states: ‘The business is actively preparing for the forthcoming de-regulated legal market place and will be submitting an application to the Solicitors Regulation Authority to become one of the first alternative business structures to be licensed. This will allow the business to provide a full suite of consumer legal services with the aim of becoming the consumer’s lawyer of choice.’
The Co-operative Group’s overall sales fell slightly to £6.89bn from £6.96bn, but within this, Co-operative Financial Services saw gross revenues rise 6.4% to £1.33bn, while its food business produced sales of £3.7bn, down 4.6%.
Chief Executive Peter Marks said: ‘It is a mixed picture, but one that shows the strengths of having a diversified portfolio of great businesses.’

Cancer Research calls for introduction of “lifetime legacies”

Sarah Woolnough, director of policy at CRUK has welcomed the Treasury’s proposals for a 10% reduction in inheritance tax for people who leave at least 10% of their estates to charity.
This initiative was announced in the March Budget, and is due to be introduced in April 2012. The proposed relief would reduce inheritance tax from 40% to 36% per cent for those leaving a tenth or more of their estates to charity.
The Charity says that wider promotion of legacy giving will generate more money for the sector than the proposal to lower inheritance tax, and in June this year, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners said that if a tax relief on legacies was adopted, most estate advisers would be likely to suggest that their clients think about leaving legacies.
CRUK have also commented that "only the wealthiest 3 per cent of estates are eligible for inheritance tax, so we also ask the government to be innovative in promoting legacy giving to charities more generally and to introduce lifetime legacies, which could be extremely beneficial for the sector."

Lib Dems face choice over land tax policy

With the party conference season looming, there appears to be dissention in the ranks of the Lib Dems over their policy proposals for tax reform. Vince Cable’s “Mansion tax” idea has already antagonised a significant number of Lib Dem voters, particularly in London where a family home can easily top £1m in value. However the proposals remain vague, with no firm notion of what might constitute a “Mansion”.
Although a recent YouGov poll suggests that 63% of voters support the idea, this probably reflects the fact that most people want the burden of tax to fall on those richer than themselves, perhaps the people Nick Clegg had in mind when he recently said that the Coalition will "review how people at the very top seek to avoid taxes and to make sure ... owners for instance of high-value property, cannot avoid paying their fair share."
Another Lib Dem idea would be the cutting down of Capital Gains Tax Private Residence Relief on properties worth more than £1m, and yet another is for a kind of super Council Tax to be levied. But as the party conference season approaches, the Lib Dems will have to decide whether such risky tax policies are worth pursuing, and it may be that the party leadership will decide which policy to back quietly without raising the matter with members at the autumn conference, to try to avoid discord within party ranks.

Will writer jailed for "invalid wills" fraud

A will writer from Berkshire has been jailed for 14 months for fraud, after he sent letters to clients warning them of a change in the law which had invalidated their wills, and offering to change them at a cost. Ventraglia’s letters offered to remedy his clients’ wills at a cost of between £30 and £60, and the whole fraud netted him only a few thousand pounds, which the Court confiscated.
The fraud was spotted by a client who reported Walter Ventriglia to Bracknell Forest Council's trading standards office and to the local probate office, both of whom warned him to stop. But he did not; in fact he issued a second run of letters making the false claims.
In July this year, Bracknell Forest brought a prosecution against him, by which time he was thought to have defrauded up to 130 clients, mostly in south-east England. In August at Reading Crown Court he was jailed for 14 months.
Ventriglia also operated a will storage business called UK Will Register. The company's promotional literature claimed that clients' documents were stored in a secure London facility. In fact, trading standards officers found the wills packed in an airing cupboard at his home.

Matthews fortune likely to be subject of contention

The £300million turkey empire of Bernard Matthews could be the subject of a contentious probate after it was revealed that the turkey magnate had a love child.

Frederick Elgershuizen, 28, is the sole biological child of the Norfolk poultry king, who died in November aged 80.

Mr Matthews was widely regarded as the epitome of English respectability, hard-work and business prowess. From humble beginnings, he rose to become the biggest turkey producer in Europe, was given a CBE by the Queen and his brand is now a household name.

Matthews married Joyce, his childhood sweetheart, almost 60 years ago and they adopted three children in the 1960s. But their marriage soon broke down – they separated in 1975 – and Mr Matthews fell in love with Cornelia Elgershuizen. They had a relationship lasting eight years and had a son together.

A spokesman for Bernard Matthews Holdings confirmed that the will was yet to go to probate, which could explain Mr Elgershuizen’s reluctance to comment for fear of exacerbating any simmering family resentment.

Mr Matthews, normally fiercely private, described his personal life as ‘complicated’. In his later years, Mr Matthews lived as a bachelor who was devoted to his company.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345667/Frederick-Elgershuizen-set-300m-feud-Bernard-Matthewss-will.html#ixzz1AifBsitI

Key IHT CGT reliefs may be abolished in Treasury review

The government is considering abolishing or "simplifying" some vital tax reliefs routinely used in estate planning.

The Treasury's Office of Tax Simplication has spent the past few weeks examining the hundreds of different reliefs and exemptions available to individuals under the UK's complex tax system, with a view to getting rid of some of them (see STEP news stories of 25 October and 8 November 2010).

But the originally stated aim of this exercise was to remove reliefs that were "largely historic, not frequently used, create distortions in the tax system or are complex for business or HMRC to administer".

On Monday a shortlist of prime candidates for abolition quietly appeared on the OTS website, along with a paper explain how the Treasury will make its decisions on each.

The most alarming item on the list is the inheritance tax relief granted to potentially exempt transfers (PETs), along with the associated seven-year taper rule (s.7 of IHTA 1984). This relief is of course very widely used in estate planning and is generally considered more of a right than a concession.

Another contentious inclusion is CGT relief for principal private residences. The OTS document contains a preliminary analysis of this relief and concludes that it should be retained, but with changes to the "last three years" provision (much used for "flipping").

Other measures being considered for abolition are CGT relief for venture capital trusts, enterprise investment schemes and entrepreneurs.

The OTS also issued a second list of reliefs that it will consider abolishing if it has time. This list is even more of a political minefield, including the GBP3,000 annual gift exemption from IHT; agricultural and business property relief; and IHT relief for various forms of trusts.

A final list of proposed abolitions and amendments will be submitted to the Chancellor ahead of Budget 2011.

Courtesy of STEP Newsletter 16.12.2010