I work for Kaplan Leadership and Professional Development (LPD), so it’s full of material for tax courses for our national and international clients. I also help out in a family tax and accounting practice, so I’m hands on too; lots of practical tax problem solving.
In your inaugural speech as president of the ATT, you said you wished to defend the ‘responsible centre ground of tax planning’. Can you give an assessment of your success in this during your term?
The tax planning profession is under pressure as never before, from the government and the media. Tax has much more of a moral element now than when I trained with Coopers & Lybrand 26 years ago. But I have never had any difficulty with the concept of responsible tax planning and the line over which planning becomes unacceptable. It’s called professional judgement and tax advisers, including ATT members, exercise that every day. I think that message is a steadying message to my ATT members and at our conferences they understand it perfectly.
Looking back on your career to date, what key lesson have you learned?
Always to be open minded. Tax is a multi-faceted prism and there is rarely one simple answer – just lots of bits that need putting together in a structured way.
What caught your eye in the Finance Bill?
Sometimes it’s the detail that catches my eye: in this Bill, it’s the clause 68 proposal to repeal the replacement rule for small tools which appeared to put small tools into the capital allowance regime. I was a bit alarmed by the practical implications of that and asked one of our technical officers to seek clarification from HMRC on the measure. That prompted an interesting discussion from which it emerged that HMRC consider that the deduction of expenditure on low cost items with an expected useful life of less than two years has not been dependent on the statutory replacement provisions! It follows rather from generally accepted accounting principles. So, the repeal of the statutory provisions should not mean that traders have to claim capital allowances on low-cost low-durability items. The repeal of the replacement provisions is going to require quite a major overhaul of HMRC guidance and I think that it will be important for tax advisers to consider the significance of any changes.
If you could make one change to a tax law or practice, what would it be?
One practical change would be getting the government to reinstate the monthly reporting for RTI for all small businesses. I’d like to get the chancellor to run a 14 hour shift in our local pub and then go upstairs and do the FPS submissions at 1am, when he’s paid everyone (at least those who turned up).
If you had one piece of advice for the chancellor, what would it be?
Slow down on the rush on ‘making tax digital’ (MTD). Too many advisers are counselling caution. It seems inappropriate to insist on quarterly reporting of all transactions in a digital format, when many small businesses struggle with digital records, some don’t even have a computer and the internet signal is so sporadic across the UK. I assume that this in response to ministerial pressure in respect of the tax gap, which HM Treasury’s analysis suggests is in a large part down to small businesses.
HMRC’s record on telephone response has been pretty lamentable (although there has been improvement recently). Written responses are also poor. I’ve now waited a year for a reply on a written response to an HMRC query and nothing yet – so please get the basics right before you move on.
Finally, you might not know this about me but…
When I’m not dreaming up tax solutions, I’m growing crops and raising animals in Kent at our small family farm. It’s a microcosm of the old garden of England, so we produce cherries, top fruit, hops, cobnuts, rare breed pigs and sheep. We also have a small vineyard and we grow shiitake mushrooms on oak logs.
I work for Kaplan Leadership and Professional Development (LPD), so it’s full of material for tax courses for our national and international clients. I also help out in a family tax and accounting practice, so I’m hands on too; lots of practical tax problem solving.
In your inaugural speech as president of the ATT, you said you wished to defend the ‘responsible centre ground of tax planning’. Can you give an assessment of your success in this during your term?
The tax planning profession is under pressure as never before, from the government and the media. Tax has much more of a moral element now than when I trained with Coopers & Lybrand 26 years ago. But I have never had any difficulty with the concept of responsible tax planning and the line over which planning becomes unacceptable. It’s called professional judgement and tax advisers, including ATT members, exercise that every day. I think that message is a steadying message to my ATT members and at our conferences they understand it perfectly.
Looking back on your career to date, what key lesson have you learned?
Always to be open minded. Tax is a multi-faceted prism and there is rarely one simple answer – just lots of bits that need putting together in a structured way.
What caught your eye in the Finance Bill?
Sometimes it’s the detail that catches my eye: in this Bill, it’s the clause 68 proposal to repeal the replacement rule for small tools which appeared to put small tools into the capital allowance regime. I was a bit alarmed by the practical implications of that and asked one of our technical officers to seek clarification from HMRC on the measure. That prompted an interesting discussion from which it emerged that HMRC consider that the deduction of expenditure on low cost items with an expected useful life of less than two years has not been dependent on the statutory replacement provisions! It follows rather from generally accepted accounting principles. So, the repeal of the statutory provisions should not mean that traders have to claim capital allowances on low-cost low-durability items. The repeal of the replacement provisions is going to require quite a major overhaul of HMRC guidance and I think that it will be important for tax advisers to consider the significance of any changes.
If you could make one change to a tax law or practice, what would it be?
One practical change would be getting the government to reinstate the monthly reporting for RTI for all small businesses. I’d like to get the chancellor to run a 14 hour shift in our local pub and then go upstairs and do the FPS submissions at 1am, when he’s paid everyone (at least those who turned up).
If you had one piece of advice for the chancellor, what would it be?
Slow down on the rush on ‘making tax digital’ (MTD). Too many advisers are counselling caution. It seems inappropriate to insist on quarterly reporting of all transactions in a digital format, when many small businesses struggle with digital records, some don’t even have a computer and the internet signal is so sporadic across the UK. I assume that this in response to ministerial pressure in respect of the tax gap, which HM Treasury’s analysis suggests is in a large part down to small businesses.
HMRC’s record on telephone response has been pretty lamentable (although there has been improvement recently). Written responses are also poor. I’ve now waited a year for a reply on a written response to an HMRC query and nothing yet – so please get the basics right before you move on.
Finally, you might not know this about me but…
When I’m not dreaming up tax solutions, I’m growing crops and raising animals in Kent at our small family farm. It’s a microcosm of the old garden of England, so we produce cherries, top fruit, hops, cobnuts, rare breed pigs and sheep. We also have a small vineyard and we grow shiitake mushrooms on oak logs.
