Robust approach needed to tackling promoters, says CIOT

Responding to HMRC’s consultation Tackling promoters of tax avoidance (again on the draft legislation for Finance Bill 2021), the CIOT agrees that the government is right to take a ‘robust approach to those who continue to devise, promote or sell tax avoidance schemes’. It favours HMRC targeting its resources on the activities of a small number of promoters and boutique firms which are involved in such avoidance schemes, rather than introducing new rules which might place additional compliance obligations on tax advisers and tax agents.

The CIOT recommends that HMRC undertake a formal consultative review of the current anti-avoidance legislation and HMRC’s powers in relation to it in three to five years’ time, at which point the tax avoidance market may look very different, to assess how the measures have achieved their purpose.