Other news in brief

A round up of other news this week.

A round up of other news this week.

Statement by co-chairs of Inclusive Framework on BEPS indicates still no consensus on Pillar One

On 13 January 2025, the OECD released a statement by the co-chairs of the Inclusive Framework (IF) on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) providing an update on Pillar One. As a reminder, the two key elements of Pillar One are ‘Amount A’ which aims to reallocate taxing rights to market jurisdictions, improve tax certainty and remove digital service taxes, and ‘Amount B’ which aims to simplify transfer pricing for baseline marketing and distribution activities, with a particular focus on the needs of low-capacity countries. In their update, the co-chairs stated that the IF members have stabilised the text of a Multilateral Convention on Amount A, but have been unable to reach agreement on the mandatory application of Amount B by jurisdictions that implement the Amount A Multilateral Convention (the ‘Amount B Framework’) and hence have still been unable to reach a final agreement on the implementation of Pillar One. The statement indicates that the co-chairs intend to continue working to achieve a consensus on the Amount B Framework and so the overall Pillar One package.

Autumn Finance Bill Public Bill Committee stage to commence on 28 January 2025

Finance Bill 2024-25 is currently awaiting scrutiny by the Public Bill Committee which is due to conclude by 4 February 2025. It has now been confirmed that the first sitting of the Committee will be on 28 January.

Map of Firth of Forth Green Freeport customs site

On 10 January 2025, HMRC published the map of the Freeport customs site for Firth of Forth Green. The incentives for making investments in this area include simplified VAT and customs arrangements. 

Consultation on changes to HMRC statistics publications published

On 16 January 2025, HMRC published a consultation to seek views on how the statistics they publish are used. With this consultation, HMRC aim to continue to produce useful and relevant statistics for stakeholders, adding publications where appropriate while reducing what they produce for those which are no longer widely used, are duplicated elsewhere, or could be produced less frequently. The consultation is open until 10 April 2025.