THERE is always good and bad news in tax but, over the last few weeks, there has been rather more good news than bad.

You may remember that a few months ago I wrote about a proposal to give HMRC the power to take established tax debts direct from the bank accounts of people who had repeatedly ignored requests for payment. 

There was a great deal of lobbying over the issue and, in November, the government announced some radical changes to the original proposals. 

There will now be a face-to-face meeting before the power is used, which should minimise the chance of the wrong person or wrong amount being pursued. 

There will also now be two rights of appeal – the second to the county court – before money can be taken. 

This means that someone completely independent of HMRC will now be able to uphold or overrule any proposed use of the power.

The equally controversial proposal to make failing to declare taxable offshore income an automatic criminal offence (even if the taxpayer had acted entirely honestly) also seems to have been dropped.

The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement contained some good news with the personal tax allowance rising next year by more than had been expected. 

In a surprise move, the Chancellor announced that when someone dies, their surviving spouse or civil partner will be able to inherit their ISA savings together with the full tax benefits (which are normally lost on death). 

There was also good news for companies undertaking research and development (R&D). 

The “above-the-line” credit will increase from 10% to 11% from April 1, 2015 and the rate of relief under the Small & Medium Size Entity (SME) scheme will increase from 225% of qualifying R&D expenditure to 230%. 

And the Chancellor announced that employers’ National Insurance contributions (NICs) will be abolished for most apprentices aged under 25 from April 2016, having already announced that employer NICs would be abolished for most apprentices under 21 from April 2015. 

There was more good news for entrepreneurs investing in Enterprise Investment Scheme companies (but bad news for some people seeking to transfer their business to a company). 

Most people looking to move home will have welcomed the changes to Stamp Duty Land Tax.

Paul Aplin OBE is a tax partner with A C Mole & Sons and chairman of the Technical Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales Tax Faculty; you can follow him on Twitter @PaulAplinOnTax. He and fellow tax partners Amanda Gunter and Paul Kingdom can be contacted on 01823-624450.