One minute with Jane Ashton, chief executive of the ATT.
What’s keeping you busy at work?
We are currently starting to think about our strategy for the next three to five years. The ATT celebrated its 30th birthday this year. We need to make sure our exams remain relevant and our membership package continues to benefit our members. In addition, we need to keep up with the latest developments in tax and make sure that any policy that is introduced is as good as it can be both for the general public and our members. This involves frequent meetings with HMRC and gathering as much evidence as we can from our members.
What change do you think might be in store for the tax profession?
I expect more regulation will be introduced, which I think the tax profession will have to pay for. We are already experiencing this with OPBAS (the Office for Professional Body Anti-money Laundering Supervisors), where all professional body AML supervisors are contributing to their cost. How we respond to this depends on the type of regulation that will be introduced: full regulation, partial regulation or no regulation at all. We are already considering the various issues for each scenario. There are many unaffiliated agents; if HMRC were to go down the full regulation route, who would regulate these people? Would they be required to belong to a professional body which could be relied upon to enforce standards, or perhaps be regulated by HMRC or a third party such as the FCA?
If you could make one change to tax law or practice, what would it be?
Changes within HMRC over the last 20 years – such as the closure of local offices, the use of call-centres and a general under-resourcing of the department – have all played to the easy characterisation of the department as remote and automated in its interactions with the public. The real danger is that it feeds the myth that tax is paid to them (the taxman) and distracts from the reality that HMRC is simply the agency that enables the funding of the type of society that we all expect. Yes, HMRC does need to improve its telephone response times and better see things from the perspective of individual taxpayers (it is making progress here), but the obligation goes far wider than that. All of us who have any involvement in the business of taxation need to help HMRC identify what its people do well (brilliantly in some cases like the ‘needs enhanced support’ service) and how it can improve its quality of service. We also need to repeat the point that an adequately resourced HMRC is a necessity. It’s really a matter of enlightened self-interest.
What advice would you give people starting out in their career?
Make the most of every opportunity and enjoy what you do. I feel extremely lucky to have held a variety of jobs, which has stood me in good stead for the job I have now.
Are there any new rules that are causing a particular problem?
Making tax digital for VAT (MTDfV) has to be mentioned. The move to MTDfV has been hampered by uncertainty about timing, an insufficiently long pilot period, confusing messages from many quarters and, at least at present, an inability to provide early assurance to agents that they had done what they need to get their clients into MTDfV. It’s far too soon to know whether MTDfV will deliver the hoped-for reduction in the tax gap and increased efficiencies for both businesses and HMRC. If it succeeds, we will probably have forgotten in five years’ time why it ever seemed such a problem. In the meantime, however, it is essential that we all continue to note what does and does not work well, so that those lessons can be applied in the design, piloting and introduction of MTD in other areas of taxation.
And finally, you might not know this about me but…
In 1982, I was part of a team that broke the world record for the longest handbell ringing recital.
One minute with Jane Ashton, chief executive of the ATT.
What’s keeping you busy at work?
We are currently starting to think about our strategy for the next three to five years. The ATT celebrated its 30th birthday this year. We need to make sure our exams remain relevant and our membership package continues to benefit our members. In addition, we need to keep up with the latest developments in tax and make sure that any policy that is introduced is as good as it can be both for the general public and our members. This involves frequent meetings with HMRC and gathering as much evidence as we can from our members.
What change do you think might be in store for the tax profession?
I expect more regulation will be introduced, which I think the tax profession will have to pay for. We are already experiencing this with OPBAS (the Office for Professional Body Anti-money Laundering Supervisors), where all professional body AML supervisors are contributing to their cost. How we respond to this depends on the type of regulation that will be introduced: full regulation, partial regulation or no regulation at all. We are already considering the various issues for each scenario. There are many unaffiliated agents; if HMRC were to go down the full regulation route, who would regulate these people? Would they be required to belong to a professional body which could be relied upon to enforce standards, or perhaps be regulated by HMRC or a third party such as the FCA?
If you could make one change to tax law or practice, what would it be?
Changes within HMRC over the last 20 years – such as the closure of local offices, the use of call-centres and a general under-resourcing of the department – have all played to the easy characterisation of the department as remote and automated in its interactions with the public. The real danger is that it feeds the myth that tax is paid to them (the taxman) and distracts from the reality that HMRC is simply the agency that enables the funding of the type of society that we all expect. Yes, HMRC does need to improve its telephone response times and better see things from the perspective of individual taxpayers (it is making progress here), but the obligation goes far wider than that. All of us who have any involvement in the business of taxation need to help HMRC identify what its people do well (brilliantly in some cases like the ‘needs enhanced support’ service) and how it can improve its quality of service. We also need to repeat the point that an adequately resourced HMRC is a necessity. It’s really a matter of enlightened self-interest.
What advice would you give people starting out in their career?
Make the most of every opportunity and enjoy what you do. I feel extremely lucky to have held a variety of jobs, which has stood me in good stead for the job I have now.
Are there any new rules that are causing a particular problem?
Making tax digital for VAT (MTDfV) has to be mentioned. The move to MTDfV has been hampered by uncertainty about timing, an insufficiently long pilot period, confusing messages from many quarters and, at least at present, an inability to provide early assurance to agents that they had done what they need to get their clients into MTDfV. It’s far too soon to know whether MTDfV will deliver the hoped-for reduction in the tax gap and increased efficiencies for both businesses and HMRC. If it succeeds, we will probably have forgotten in five years’ time why it ever seemed such a problem. In the meantime, however, it is essential that we all continue to note what does and does not work well, so that those lessons can be applied in the design, piloting and introduction of MTD in other areas of taxation.
And finally, you might not know this about me but…
In 1982, I was part of a team that broke the world record for the longest handbell ringing recital.
