Talking Dirty – An Environmental Blog: Landfill Tax

Another briefer than usual version of ‘Talking Dirty’ today to introduce the important changes to the landfill tax regime in Scotland, effective as of 1^st April 2015.

Landfill operators in Scotland are no longer liable to pay UK landfill tax in respect of waste disposed at their sites but are now liable to register and account for Scottish Landfill Tax with Revenue Scotland. There is some (fairly) helpful guidance available on the new Revenue Scotland website regarding registration, liability and rates of tax – https://www.revenue.scot/scottish-landfill-tax/guidance.

All Scottish operators should already have notified Revenue Scotland of their intention to carry out taxable activities in relation to Scottish Landfill Tax as they will now have been automatically de-registered from the UK landfill tax system. Final returns for UK landfill tax up to and including 31^st March 2015, if not already received, will be issued very shortly (according to HMRC) and operators will, as usual, have one month within which to pay any tax due for that period.

For those who operate sites in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, there is a slightly different process to be gone through to ensure that any Scottish sites are removed from an operators existing UK registration. Particular attention should be paid to any Landfill Communities Fund credits due for qualifying contributions as these will only be available in relation to spending on approved projects out with Scotland from 31^st March 2015.

Interestingly, there is an expectation for landfill tax to be devolved to Wales from April 2018 so perhaps they will be watching the Scottish regime closely over the next few years!

If any of you have any views, comments or suggestions of specific ‘dirt’ that you would like to see discussed here then please get in touch – email, phone, twitter or linked-in. I’ll be back with another blog post again soon!

Disclaimer 
The matter in this publication is based on our current understanding of the law.  The information provides only an overview of the law in force at the date hereof and has been produced for general information purposes only. Professional advice should always be sought before taking any action in reliance of the information. Accordingly, Davidson Chalmers LLP does not take any responsibility for losses incurred by any person through acting or failing to act on the basis of anything contained in this publication.