The latest edition of Slaughter and May's Tax News podcast (July 2026) is out now, hosted by Zoe Andrews (Head of Tax Knowledge) and Tax associate Amy Motherwell.

The podcast covers several developments that may be relevant to you including:

• Key cases: The Supreme Court's decision in HFFX on the limits of purposive construction and the charge to miscellaneous income; the Upper Tribunal's decision in Barclays Services Corporation upholding the FTT's finding that a US company's UK branch lacked sufficient resources to constitute a fixed establishment for VAT grouping purposes; and the Upper Tribunal's decision in Swiss Centre on when payments qualify for deductions under the loan relationship regime.
• UK developments: HMRC's consultation on reducing the high effective tax rates faced by UK-resident individual members of US LLCs and other reverse hybrid entities; the surprise consultation on modernising the distributions framework covering share buybacks, demergers, returns of capital and transactions in securities; and HMRC's Transformation Roadmap progress update including new third-party data reporting obligations and plans to improve digital services.
• International spotlight: The European Commission's tax simplification package comprising a Direct Taxation Omnibus Directive amending six existing EU tax directives and a DAC recast consolidating all administrative cooperation rules into a single instrument — with adoption of the DAC recast potentially achievable by end of 2026.