By making occasional retrospective changes to its tax system the UK could be putting its reputation as a good place to do business at risk.
On 26 March HMRC republished the government’s Protocol on unscheduled announcements of changes in tax law first set out in Chapter 4 of HM Treasury’s paper Tackling tax avoidance published at Budget 2011.
The Protocol says that retrospective changes to the law will only be announced other than at Budget where an immediate change in the law is expected to prevent a significant loss to the Exchequer and significant new information has emerged to identify the risk or indicate its scale. Any such announcements will be put before Parliament in the...
