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The Chancellor's Budget of Summer 2015 was delivered by George Osborne in deceptively straightforward terms. However, the Tax Information and Impact Notices and other Budget material published immediately afterwards suggest that the legislation introducing many of the tax changes, which will be published in a Finance Bill next week, is going to be anything but straightforward.

For example, there was much speculation about an increase in the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million. However, in reality the 'nil rate band' of £325,000 per individual is not changing any time soon. Instead, there is to be an additional nil rate band when a main residence is passed on death to a direct descendant, increasing in stages from £100,000 in 2017/18 to £175,000 in 2020/21. So where does the magic £1 million come from? Well, if you are a married couple or civil partnership, you will eventually get combined nil rate bands amounting to £1 million per couple (i.e. two lots of £325,000, plus two lots of £175,000). However, the additional nil rate band is tapered away for estates with a net value of more than £2 million, at a rate of £1 for every £2 over the threshold. What could be simpler.

The tapering away of pensions tax relief for high earners is another example of a relatively straightforward concept made unnecessarily complicated. The same could be said about the restriction in interest relief for individual landlords. I could go on, but I think you get the gist.

To make matters worse, some commentators have warned that the Finance Bill will not receive Royal Assent until September, after Parliament has returned from its summer recess. If that is true, there will be a state of limbo in which those potentially affected by the Finance Bill provisions will have to wait another couple of months to find out precisely how the changes will affect them.

My sympathy goes to anyone whose work involves tax to any significant degree. However, I feel even more sorry for UK taxpayers. The UK already has one of the most complex tax systems in the world. The Chancellor's Budget of 8 July 2015 will add further complexity and probably several hundred pages of further legislation in due course. Good luck working out your tax position in the months and years to come.

For those interested in some light reading, HMRC announcements and related tax documents can be found here: Summer Budget 2015: HM Revenue & Customs

Treasury and other notices are also available here: Summer Budget 2015

Best wishes

Mark McLaughlin