If the election campaign had not already started, it certainly has now.  Mr Osborne’s Budget speech was full of upbeat messages about how well everything is going and how much better they are going to get.  In amongst the noise there was an eclectic variety of new and interesting ideas for moving the UK’s tax system forward but these were all aspirational, to be introduced at some point during the next parliament.

Measures coming into effect in the next tax year were limited to things we knew already, further tightening the regime to combat tax avoidance, evasion and fraud  and a range of unrelated tweaks to the current system designed to appeal to specific demographics – presumably to make sure they know what to do on polling day.

One of the things we knew already is the extension of Capital Gains Tax to cover gains made by certain non-residents of the UK on the disposal of UK residential property.  This will affect Manx residents with holiday homes or buy-to-let houses and flats in the UK.

The change has been presented as making UK CGT consistent with international norms but it doesn’t do that.  International norms impose CGT on all gains on all real estate located in the country.  By continuing to exempt non-residents’ gains on commercial property and all gains made by most non-resident collective investment schemes, the UK is foregoing substantial potential tax revenue.  Why are they doing this?

Another of the things we knew already is the introduction of the new Diverted Profits Tax, a.k.a. the ‘google tax’.  It remains to be seen how this will work in practice but it could impact upon some Manx companies doing business in the UK and some UK companies with Manx subsidiaries.

The very existence of this tax is rather odd.  Only two inferences are possible.  The first is that it will be one of the shortest lived taxes ever.  The second is that even at this early stage, the UK government has already given up any hope of the BEPS initiative currently being undertaken by the OECD yielding any meaningful results.

Probably the biggest new news for Isle of Man businesses was in amongst the measures combatting tax evasion.  The UK has unilaterally decided to terminate its Manx Disclosure Facility at the end of 2015, nine months earlier than had been agreed.  This is essentially an issue for UK tax evaders, not us here, but IoM based financial institutions will need to be alert to the change and make sure that they communicate effectively with their clients.  Time is running out and anyone who wants to make use of the current disclosure facility had better get on with it.

It was also announced that an extra three billion pounds or more will be raised from measures to counter tax avoidance and evasion.  That’s a lot of money.  Whether that will be possible without reversing cuts in HMRC staffing remains to be seen.

So, in conclusion, was it a good budget or a bad one for the Isle of Man?  We suggest it was a good one.  It contained little or no news of serious concern to us here and these days, that’s got to be good.