Breaking New Ground? Developing a Scottish tax to replace the UK Aggregates Levy: consultation

Chapter 6: Registration

6.1 The Scottish Government proposes that any person, whether corporate or non-corporate, intending to or continuing to exploit aggregate in Scotland must be registered with Revenue Scotland for the devolved tax, from the date it is introduced.

6.2 We also propose that registered taxpayers would be required to give notification when they intend to cease commercial exploitation of aggregate, so that they can then be de-registered for tax purposes.

6.3 Currently, associated companies can register for the UK levy as a group. With group registration, a company can be registered alongside other individual companies, in the name of one representative member. At present, this group registration could include companies operating in all parts of the UK.

6.4 The Scottish Government is interested in views on how the process of site registration and taxpayer registration be streamlined. This could, for example, include consideration of whether there are technological solutions available to identify extraction site locations that recognise site boundaries as well as the site location, and make a dynamic assessment of the site boundary. Potential examples might include imaging gathered by drones or satellites, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Artificial Intelligence applications.

6.5 We are also interested in other ideas for streamlining site administration, including any potential to combine it with other registration processes such as local authority planning requirements.

Question

B1 – What factors should we take into consideration when making regulations regarding registration for a devolved tax?

B2 – What scope is there to simplify, modernise and streamline both site and tax administration, perhaps using modern technologies?

Declaring exempt aggregate

6.6 For the UK levy, anyone commercially exploiting only exempt aggregate does not need to register. Some information must however be provided to HMRC if the exempt aggregate is one of the following types:

• coal, lignite or slate
• processing waste from the separation of coal, lignite or slate from other rock after extraction
• processing waste from the separation of certain industrial minerals from other rock after extraction
• china clay waste or ball clay waste (not including overburden)
• clay

6.7 Information currently provided regarding exempt aggregate includes:

• business name, address and company registration number
• the type of aggregate commercially exploited
• the dates commercial exploitation began and stopped
• total tonnage exploited
• an estimate of the tonnage of the aggregate to be exploited in the next 12 months
• location of commercial exploitation

Questions

B3 – What registration requirements should be in put in place for persons which only commercially exploit exempt aggregates, and on what basis?

B4 – Where registration is required, what information could be provided to aid Revenue Scotland in understanding the attributes of an individual site and the wider commercial landscape?

B5 – What opportunities do you think there may be to improve the collection, processing and use of that information?

B6 – Are there other registration processes currently undertaken where the information provided could either overlap or help inform the tax registration process?

Cross border movements

6.8 The Scottish Government recognises that some taxpayers will commercially exploit aggregate in Scotland and the rest of the UK and will therefore be registered for both taxes. We are interested in views regarding how the administration of cross border movements of aggregate can be made convenient and effective.

Questions

B7 – What factors should we take into consideration to ensure convenient and efficient tax administration of cross border movements of aggregate?