Minister says UK will launch tax-transparent fund vehicle

The UK has unveiled plans to launch a tax-transparent fund regime in a bid to take advantage of the inclusion of master-feeder structures in the European Union’s Ucits IV Directive, which will take effect from July 1 next year.
The financial secretary to the Treasury, Mark Hoban, has announced that the UK government plans to launch a consultation exercise before the end of this year on how best to implement the directive.
The UK authorities recognise that the country is not an attractive domicile for master-feeder structures because of the lack of a suitable tax-transparent fund vehicle, and they plan to remedy this.
Analysts say that the ability to create tax-transparent funds have been an important factor in Luxembourg and Ireland becoming the leading domiciles for funds established under the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities regime, established by the EU in the 1980s as a framework for cross-border fund distribution.