The Commons Treasury Committee is to write to the chancellor, asking why the Office of Tax Simplification is to be abolished. As part of its recent tax reliefs enquiry, the committee recently held a session with the OTS focusing on how its closure is likely to affect efforts to improve the tax relief system.
Bill Dodwell, OTS tax director, commented that no reason appears to have been given for the decision to close the OTS, noting: ‘I still don’t know why Kwasi Kwarteng made that announcement, it contained no reason why the office should be closed and I think the Government, and future governments, will miss some of the attributes of the office. They will lose a champion for simplification, they will miss having a dedicated team that can look in depth at a range of issues and they will miss the candid and frank comments you get externally that you won’t get to HMRC. I think the Government and the country would be better off if it retains us than if it abolishes us. We are not an expensive body and we have done good work.’
In its summary of the session, the CIOT highlights some of the areas the OTS had hoped to review in the future, including further work on ‘self-assessment, tax certainty, the savings tax system and the pension system’.
Kathryn Cearns, OTS chair, said that she would like the office to focus on the digitisation of the tax system, noting: ‘My broader frustration is around the digital side of things and how much ought to be invested to get a really good system in place that taxpayers can use effectively’.
Harriet Baldwin, committee chair, also asked Bill Dodwell, whether the tax code is now ‘longer and more complicated’ than it was in 2010. In response, Mr Dodwell agreed, but noted the principal reason being the number of new taxes introduced over the last 20 years with, on average, one new tax added every year. Dodwell also pointed out that the widely reported ‘11,000 pages’ of tax legislation does not reflect the complexity of the UK’s tax code, given that the OTS itself had already identified that Tolley’s Yellow and Orange Tax Handbooks are organised to help practitioners find what they need (for example, by reproducing the HMRC powers and penalties legislation in more than one volume) rather than providing a measure of the volume of tax law.
In her concluding remarks, Baldwin said: ‘I recommend that our Committee take this away by writing to the Chancellor to find out the justifications for why he has continued with the ending of your separate existence, so that we can then consider what our next steps might be as a Committee’.
The Commons Treasury Committee is to write to the chancellor, asking why the Office of Tax Simplification is to be abolished. As part of its recent tax reliefs enquiry, the committee recently held a session with the OTS focusing on how its closure is likely to affect efforts to improve the tax relief system.
Bill Dodwell, OTS tax director, commented that no reason appears to have been given for the decision to close the OTS, noting: ‘I still don’t know why Kwasi Kwarteng made that announcement, it contained no reason why the office should be closed and I think the Government, and future governments, will miss some of the attributes of the office. They will lose a champion for simplification, they will miss having a dedicated team that can look in depth at a range of issues and they will miss the candid and frank comments you get externally that you won’t get to HMRC. I think the Government and the country would be better off if it retains us than if it abolishes us. We are not an expensive body and we have done good work.’
In its summary of the session, the CIOT highlights some of the areas the OTS had hoped to review in the future, including further work on ‘self-assessment, tax certainty, the savings tax system and the pension system’.
Kathryn Cearns, OTS chair, said that she would like the office to focus on the digitisation of the tax system, noting: ‘My broader frustration is around the digital side of things and how much ought to be invested to get a really good system in place that taxpayers can use effectively’.
Harriet Baldwin, committee chair, also asked Bill Dodwell, whether the tax code is now ‘longer and more complicated’ than it was in 2010. In response, Mr Dodwell agreed, but noted the principal reason being the number of new taxes introduced over the last 20 years with, on average, one new tax added every year. Dodwell also pointed out that the widely reported ‘11,000 pages’ of tax legislation does not reflect the complexity of the UK’s tax code, given that the OTS itself had already identified that Tolley’s Yellow and Orange Tax Handbooks are organised to help practitioners find what they need (for example, by reproducing the HMRC powers and penalties legislation in more than one volume) rather than providing a measure of the volume of tax law.
In her concluding remarks, Baldwin said: ‘I recommend that our Committee take this away by writing to the Chancellor to find out the justifications for why he has continued with the ending of your separate existence, so that we can then consider what our next steps might be as a Committee’.
