The ICAEW questions the complexity of UK tax law following the publication of Finance Act 2009, which includes a record breaking 61 Schedules and is the fifth longest Finance Act ever.
To demonstrate, in an easily recognisable way, just how complex our tax law has become, the ICAEW has developed its Big Ben Statutory Tax Burden.
The Finance Act 2009, published in July, eclipses by quite a margin the record 46 Schedules in last year's Act and is 17 pages longer at 468, which the ICAEW Tax Faculty believes is a shift in the wrong direction.
It is the fifth longest Finance Act ever: all these five record breaking Finance Acts have been published during the current decade.
The ICAEW Tax Faculty has established an annual monitor of tax complexity known as Big Ben's Statutory Tax Burden, which aims to highlight the burden on taxpayers by using the illustration of Big Ben - a symbol of British Parliament and law-making.
It is the fifth year the ICAEW has monitored the Big Ben Statutory Tax Burden and this year's publication coincides with the 150th anniversary of Big Ben itself which became fully operational on 7 September 1859. The ICAEW now records the size of Finance Acts over a 30 year period.
Ian Young, technical manager at the ICAEW Tax Faculty, said:
"Comparing the number of pages in each Finance Act is a simple, figurative, way of showing how the taxpayer has been increasingly straining under the weight of legislation.
"This year the number of pages in the Finance Act will remain at the very high level registered in 2008 and has increased from 451 in 2008 to 468 in 2009.
"The average number of pages in the second half of this decade has been 419 pages compared with 505 in the first half, so that is some improvement at least. But the average number of Finance Act pages this decade is still more than three times the average in the 1980s.
"In 2009 there were also 61 Schedules, which is more than in any other Finance Act ever," Ian concluded.
The volume of legislation over the last thirty years of Finance Acts (Word 99kb/1 page)
Media enquiries
Contact Elizabeth Faulkner, ICAEW press office, on 0207 920 8718, 07890 522 120, or email elizabeth.faulkner@icaew.com