Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has confirmed the amount that will be charged for the standard and lower rate of landfill tax from April 2016, in guidance documents published in March.
All landfill site operators in the UK received a briefing document following the budget announcement; the document asserts that the ‘loss of ignition (LOI)’ testing regime will come into effect from the beginning of April as previously outlined in the Autumn statement.
According to the document the standard rate of landfill tax, which currently stands at £80 per tonne and is due to rise in line with inflation to £82.60 per tonne in the beginning of April, will be set at £84.40 per tonne in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from April 1 2016.
Similarly, the lower rate of landfill tax, which is due to rise from £2.50 per tonne to £2.60 per tonne in April 2015, will climb to £2.65 per tonne in April 2016.
Elsewhere, the document outlines the process of devolving landfill tax responsibilities for Scotland from HMRC to the Scottish Government.
It states:
“If you operate landfill sites only in Scotland, HMRC will deregister you from UK landfill tax with effect from 31 March 2015. We have the information we require and you do not need to take any action to deregister. We will write to you to confirm your deregistration.
“You may have already received a final return on which to account for UK landfill tax up until 31 March 2015 – if not you will receive one very soon. You will have one month, as usual, in which to submit the return and pay any tax due. You must account for tax on all disposals of waste to landfill up to and including the 31 March, even if you issue the invoice after that date.”
While landfill tax responsibility north of the border will pass to the Scottish Government, as previously reported by letsrecycle.com, there will be a delay in the start of the LOI testing regime in Scotland, as Revenue Scotland – the Scottish taxation body, has yet to formalise guidance on the issue.
The test, which determines whether a waste load should be subject to a standard or lower rate of landfill tax, will be compulsory for all landfill site operators. Meanwhile, landfill tax in Wales is also set to pass under the control of the Welsh Government; a move that the HMRC guidance confirms is likely to take effect in April 2018.
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