It was only a few months ago that private equity lawyers were fearing the sky would fall in with all the talk of tax hikes for buy-out houses and their executives. While fears this could lead to an exodus from the UK may have been a little overstated, there were still some concerned faces among City lawyers prior to the pre-Budget report last week.
Private equity did not escape unscathed. The announced abolition of taper relief and the creation of one flat capital gains rate is a response to the low tax rates paid by wealthy private equity executives and will see smaller businesses’ rates hiked from 10% to 18%.
