A little-publicised proposal buried in the UK government’s pre-budget report, announced earlier this week, will see the rate of taxation on trusts increased in 2011, a move which is likely to further erode their usefulness as an estate planning tool.
As part of 2008’s pre-budget report, UK Chancellor Alistair Darling has announced that Air Passenger Duty will be subject to some significant increases in 2009.
Dmitry Medvedev, President of Russia, and Demetris Christofias (pictured), President of Cyprus met last week to discuss bilateral relations, although there appears to be little sign yet that Moscow is ready to remove Cyprus from its tax ‘blacklist’ despite optimistic noises from the Cypriot leadership.