Spaced out
THOSE of us with spacecraft or satellites can prepare to sell them, secure in the knowledge that the Budget will bring us rollover relief against Capital Gains Tax. There will be a clause in the Finance Bill to say so. I learn this from the Budget racecard, with its runners and riders and naps and tips, which has arrived from my eminent accountants. I pass the word to Stephen Merrett, the Lloyd's underwriter, who is the only man I know to have owned satellites — he had insured and paid out on a brace of them, they were retrieved on his behalf from space, and at one stage he was having a little trouble in selling them on. For the rest of us, the message is to get the bad news out of the way before the Budget, and let the good news wait until after. Take capital losses now — and, if you are selling something to buy it back, be careful. The Revenue has turned choosy with these overnight bed-and-breakfast re- lationships, and, of anything more casual, downright censorious. Leave capital gains until the next tax year, when they can expect a better deal. (Some even talk of a trade-off — less or no tax on long-term holdings, stricter tax on short-term spe- culative gains, but you can't have many of those now, can you?) Defer your income and wait for the lower tax rates ahead, but get your claims for tax relief — for inst- ance, on retirement annuities — into this year. My accountants accompany this sea- sonal communication with another, an exceptionally large bill. They do not say how far it is tax-allowable, and I am not sure I can afford to ask. Roll on the tax reform and simplification that cuts their bills as wen as the Revenue's.
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