Finance No. 2 Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:30 pm on 18 May 2023.
Clause 347 makes changes to support the expansion of the dormant assets scheme to a wider range of assets, including insurance assets, pension assets, investment assets, client money assets and security assets such as shares. The Government estimate that up to a further £880 million will be made available for good causes across the UK thanks to the expansion of the scheme to the new sectors.
As we know, under the UK’s dormant assets scheme, dormant asset funds are transferred to an authorised reclaim fund, Reclaim Fund Ltd. People can reclaim from that fund what they otherwise would have owned if their asset had never been transferred into the scheme. In some cases, it will be the monetary value of the dormant asset that will be transferred into the RFL rather than the original asset.
We understand that clause 347 ensures that the payments from an authorised reclaim fund are treated, for the purposes of income tax, as if they were from a pension asset that was initially transferred. We understand that it also seeks to ensure that, where an asset has been transferred from an authorised reclaim fund and its owner was alive at the time but subsequently dies before the asset has been reclaimed, the owner will be treated for inheritance tax purposes as still owning the original asset. We do not oppose the clause.