Changes in government 

Andy Burnham MP was appointed Prime Minister in July. In an article published to mark his first week in office, we reflected on the measures announced so far, including the cut in VAT on domestic energy bills and the reduction in business rates bills for pubs.  

Also in July: 

• John Healey MP replaced Rachel Reeves MP as Chancellor of the Exchequer; and 
• James Murray MP was appointed Financial Secretary to the Treasury (FST) and Paymaster General. With this appointment, ministerial responsibility for HMRC was transferred to the FST from the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (XST). James Murray MP was XST between 9 July 2024 and 1 September 2025. 

Budget and Finance Bill cycle 

In a letter to Parliament’s Treasury Committee, the Chancellor confirmed that he will deliver the 2026 Budget on 28 October 2026. 

On 13 July 2026 - Legislation day (or L day) – the government published draft legislation confirming several policy announcements made at tax update 2026 and earlier, as well as new consultations seeking views on:   

• simplifying treaty relief from withholding tax on interest paid overseas;
• reforming land remediation relief;
• the tax treatment of predevelopment costs; and 
• aligning the time limits for recovery of national insurance contributions with income tax. 

Our article provides further information and links to the documents.    

The Tax Faculty continues to work on responses to the consultations published by the government as part of Tax Update 2026. Our round-up article for June provides more information about the consultations. In July, we published articles looking in detail at the consultations on: 

• measures to tackle low value tax debt; and
• changes to the tax rules applying the distributions.  

HMRC service performance 

HMRC published a collection of reports and documents on 9 July 2026, including its annual report and accounts for the year to 31 March 2026. As we explain in an article, although it appears HMRC answered calls and responded to post more quickly in 2025/26 than in previous years, a survey of agents and taxpayers suggests that the quality of HMRC’s services continues to fall short of expected standards.

In other news: 

• HMRC published an update to its transformation roadmap, revealing that its digital services for agents may continue to lag behind those for taxpayers for some time to come (read more); and 
• there was praise and constructive criticism of HMRC’s large business directorate from Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (learn more). 

Agents 

The timetable for mandatory registration with HMRC was confirmed in secondary legislation in July. Our article explains the key dates and the process for advisers that have an agent services account.  

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) will be added to agents’ HMRC accounts between 28 September and 15 October 2026 unless it has already been added, or the agent opted before 31 July 2026 for it to be added on 19 August 2026. We explained what MFA is and how it works in a recent Tax in Practice webinar. This was followed by an article providing more information on agents’ preparations for MFA, based on polls conducted during the webinar.  

Agents may also find our article on making the best use of HMRC webchat useful.  

Other news 

In July, we published articles highlighting HMRC’s one-to-many campaigns intended to improve tax compliance in the following areas: 

• cryptoassets;
• property income; and
• capital gains tax rollover relief.  

July proved to be a busy month in VAT, with articles published explaining:  

• the VAT treatment of supplies of medical staff;
• changes to the capital goods scheme; 
• international developments relating to cryptoassets; and
• updates to HMRC guidance on the summer holidays VAT cut.  

And finally, in one of our most viewed articles for the month, we highlighted a class 2 national insurance contributions issue that may have left approximately 800,000 taxpayers with gaps in their NIC record.