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1 Tom Clougherty, et al., After the Super-Deduction: Assessing Proposals for the Reform of Capital Allowances 1 (2022)

handle is hein.taxfoundation/afuksuper0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 





                         FOUA     TION4-             rP0i




                                                                              Sept. 2022


After the Super-Deduction

Assessing Proposals for the Reform of Capital Allowances

Tom Clougherty Research Director & Head of Tax at the Centre for Policy Studies
Kyle Pomerleau Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
Daniel Bunn    Executive Vice President, Tax Foundation



Key   Findings

   •  For many years, the UK has adopted a strikingly ungenerous approach to capital cost
      recovery - the ability of firms to write off investment against tax. This has coincided with
      consistently low levels of business investment.

   •  The government has considered making the system of capital allowances more
      supportive of investment and published a number of reform options in March's Spring
      Statement.

   •  Based on our original economic modelling, each of the reform options outlined by
      the Treasury would reduce marginal effective tax rates on new investment and boost
      investment, wages, and economic growth.

   •  Their most ambitious option - a watered-down version of full expensing for plant and
      machinery - would have the greatest impact, increasing long-run GDP by 0.7 percent.

   •  Going beyond the Treasury's initial suggestions by extending genuine full expensing to
      structures and buildings would more than triple the economic impact of capital allowance
      reform, boosting long-run GDP by 2.5 percent.

   •  The government should be as bold as possible when it comes to permanent reform of
      capital allowances. High up-front revenue losses should not necessarily be prohibitive,
      given their transitory nature, and can be reduced using an approach known as neutral
      cost recovery.


The authors are grateful to Karl Williams (senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Studies) for his work on the policy costings contained in this report.