HMRC forced to rewrite rules to free insurers from 50% tax
HM Revenue & Customs has changed it definitions of banks to stop the one-off 50% supertax on bonuses hitting insurers, the Guardian reports
"We have received representations that the definition of a bank inadvertently catches companies which would not be regarded as a bank from a commercial or legal perspective," HMRC said.
"Having considered these, we think that the diversity of regulated investment activities undertaken by non-banking financial service groups in the UK means that the original definition of a 'bank' did not effectively exclude all the groups we intended to exclude. This resulted in a number of corporate groups inadvertently being brought within the definition of a 'banking group', and therefore within the scope of the bank payroll tax."
