Legal & General Group PLC
04 October 2005
Re New Draft Tax Legislation
Legal & General Group Plc ('Legal & General') is aware that the Economic
Secretary to the Treasury announced late last Thursday new draft tax legislation
affecting life insurance companies.
The scope and full impact of the draft legislation is materially unclear.
However, if the proposed legislation were enacted and were to apply to the
accumulated non-profit reserves in our UK Long Term Fund, then we estimate the
additional tax charge which could be reflected in our European Embedded Value
accounts could be of the order of £200 million.
Our European Embedded Value accounts already assume the tax effect of
distributing reserves over a period. Our International Financial Reporting
Standards (IFRS) accounts do not make such an assumption. Accordingly, the
potential impact of the draft legislation on our IFRS accounts would be larger
and, in 2005, could result in a one-off current tax charge of an amount up to of
the order of £500 million.
The above management estimates are provisional and are based upon draft
legislation which is very uncertain. They have not been audited or subject to
external actuarial review.
Sir David Prosser, Group Chief Executive, commented 'This draft legislation has
been published without any consultation. The Government is proposing
retrospective taxation on reserves which provide security for this industry's
customers. Our accumulated reserves have been built up over many years and
include funds which have already been taxed.
It is our understanding that the industry will be lobbying strongly to have this
draft legislation withdrawn or amended. Legal & General will fully support such
measures.'
Enquiries to:
Investors:
Andrew Palmer, Group Director (Finance) 020 7528 6286
Peter Horsman, Head of Investor Relations 020 7528 6362
Nicola Marshall, Investor Relations Manager 020 7528 6263
Media:
John Morgan, Media Relations Director 020 7528 6213
Anthony Carlisle, Citigate Dewe Rogerson 07973 611888
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
*A Private Investor is a recipient of the information who meets all of the conditions set out below, the recipient:
Obtains access to the information in a personal capacity;
Is not required to be regulated or supervised by a body concerned with the regulation or supervision of investment or financial services;
Is not currently registered or qualified as a professional securities trader or investment adviser with any national or state exchange, regulatory authority, professional association or recognised professional body;
Does not currently act in any capacity as an investment adviser, whether or not they have at some time been qualified to do so;
Uses the information solely in relation to the management of their personal funds and not as a trader to the public or for the investment of corporate funds;
Does not distribute, republish or otherwise provide any information or derived works to any third party in any manner or use or process information or derived works for any commercial purposes.
Please note, this site uses cookies. Some of the cookies are essential for parts of the site to operate and have already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but if you do, parts of the site may not work. To find out more about the cookies used on Investegate and how you can manage them, see our Privacy and Cookie Policy
To continue using Investegate, please confirm that you are a private investor as well as agreeing to our Privacy and Cookie Policy & Terms.