Institute welcomes ‘small steps’ towards a simpler tax system
The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) has welcomed a number of consultations launched today which could make parts of the tax system easier to navigate, but said there was nothing in today’s measures that most people would recognise as simplifying their taxes.
CIOT was commenting on the Tax Administration and Maintenance Day package of measures1 published today by the government, who say it will ‘make the system simpler and more effective’.2
CIOT Director of Public Policy Ellen Milner3 commented:
“The tax system is too complicated. It is good that the government are talking about simplifying it and putting forward proposals which will hopefully lead to improvements in particular areas.
“For example, the launch of a much-needed consultation on modernising stamp duty for shares and a consultation on tax treatment of some crypto-asset transactions. The stamp duty consultation is the product of lots of work over a long period of time, starting with an Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) report back in 2017.
“However these measures are all quite niche. There is nothing in today’s measures which holds out the prospect of simplifying tax for the vast majority of UK taxpayers.
“Nor is there anything to ‘embed’ simplification in the tax system, as the government have promised to do. CIOT, along with other professional bodies, wrote to the Financial Secretary earlier this month4 setting out a series of actions – structural and process – that ministers and officials should take if they are serious about delivering a simpler tax system. We are still waiting for the government to say how they will do this.
“The promise to ‘embed simplification’ in the tax policy process came in the aftermath of the decision to abolish the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS). Today’s announcements are small steps in the right direction towards a simpler tax system. But that process would be helped, not hindered, by the retention of the OTS.”
