The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) has published a policy paper setting out a vision for how government could make tax easier for people through making better use of data held by third parties, such as bank interest, and the steps that would need to be taken towards making it a reality.
The report considers the principles and safeguards that should apply, the key considerations, impacts and priorities that HMRC should focus on, the stages in which work might proceed, and what realistic timescales would be.
The report makes a number of recommendations which, in particular, encourage the government to:
ensure that data reported to HMRC by third parties is visible to taxpayers and their agents through the single customer account, and used to update tax codes and support the completion of individuals’ tax returns;
set out a clear roadmap of the stages through which changes would be consulted on and made;
consider the most effective choice of unique identifier to enable third-party data to be readily and accurately matched with HMRC’s taxpayer records;
consult widely on the balance of responsibilities as between data providers, software providers, agents, taxpayers and HMRC; and
explore how best to enable taxpayers to see and validate data matched to their account, and to provide an appropriate mechanism for them to query or amend the data.
The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) has published a policy paper setting out a vision for how government could make tax easier for people through making better use of data held by third parties, such as bank interest, and the steps that would need to be taken towards making it a reality.
The report considers the principles and safeguards that should apply, the key considerations, impacts and priorities that HMRC should focus on, the stages in which work might proceed, and what realistic timescales would be.
The report makes a number of recommendations which, in particular, encourage the government to:
ensure that data reported to HMRC by third parties is visible to taxpayers and their agents through the single customer account, and used to update tax codes and support the completion of individuals’ tax returns;
set out a clear roadmap of the stages through which changes would be consulted on and made;
consider the most effective choice of unique identifier to enable third-party data to be readily and accurately matched with HMRC’s taxpayer records;
consult widely on the balance of responsibilities as between data providers, software providers, agents, taxpayers and HMRC; and
explore how best to enable taxpayers to see and validate data matched to their account, and to provide an appropriate mechanism for them to query or amend the data.
