Autumn Budget 2025 and Finance Bill

The Chancellor delivered her Budget speech on 26 November 2025. After all the Budget speculation, the proposed changes were much less than expected, but looking at the Red Book shows that there will be substantial tax rises towards the end of the current Parliament (2028/29 and 2029/30). As always, however, there is a lot of detail in the Budget material which we are still in the process of absorbing.

ICAEW’s budget-related commentary and resources can be found on the Budget hub page. This includes a link to the Tax Faculty’s Budget webinar on 28 November. Close to 3,000 members signed up to watch the webinar. The Tax Faculty also recorded a Budget podcast – details below.

We also expect the Finance Bill to be published in the week commencing 1 December 2025. It is likely to be lengthy so keep a look out for our articles explaining the details.

The Budget announcements included several changes made to proposed measures which had been called for by the Tax Faculty. These included: the ability to transfer unused inheritance tax agricultural property relief/business property relief allowance to a spouse; that personal representatives can ensure a retention from unused pension payments on death from pension providers to make sure that the estate affairs are equitably settled; and a ‘soft landing’ for Making Tax Digital (MTD) for income tax penalties in the first year.

Modernising and mandating agent registration and raising standards

ICAEW staff and volunteers have been engaging with HMRC at several roundtables during the month on the draft Finance Bill legislation that was published on 21 July 2025. We have continued to discuss concerns raised in ICAEW’s representations submitted at the end of September:

• ICAEW REP 69/25 Policy paper Modernising and mandating tax adviser registration with HMRC;
• ICAEW REP 70/25 Policy paper Enhancing HMRC's powers: tackling tax adviser facilitated non-compliance; and
• ICAEW REP 71/25 Policy paper Proposals to close in on promoters of marketed tax avoidance.

In the Budget, the Government announced that it would not be proceeding with regulation of tax advisers. Given the extensive changes to the tax advice market as a result of the above three sets of measures, the Tax Faculty welcomes this announcement.

PCRT

The professional conduct in relation to taxation (PCRT) bodies met on 18 November 2025. The main items discussed were the progress on the three sets of topical guidance, namely MTD, R&D and AI. Good progress is being made on all three and we hope that they will be published before the end of the year.

Once these are published the PCRT group will turn their attention to a revision of the helpsheets. Given all the developments that have taken place in standard setting etc, the PCRT bodies are also planning a half day meeting to consider future strategy and the role of the PCRT in setting and raising standards more generally.

HMRC service performance

The Tax Faculty was pleased to see that HMRC’s telephone and post performance appear to have shown some further improvements in the quarter to the end of September 2025.

HMRC’s data suggests that it’s getting closer to delivering the standard of services that taxpayers have a right to expect. However, members still tell us that they are still experiencing long delays in HMRC responding to correspondence and so we must treat this data cautiously. HMRC is targeting the actioning of incoming post, but this can be at the expense of actioning older post, with the result that the due date for dealing with older post keeps getting put back – an unsatisfactory outcome for taxpayers and agents. We would urge HMRC to review its performance measures to make sure they properly reflect the true position and encourage older post to be dealt with in equal priority.

Meetings with HMRC

During the month ICAEW Tax Faculty staff attended several meetings with HMRC, some in conjunction with other representative bodies. These included: the Representative Bodies Steering Group; MTD External Readiness Forum; and HMRC Charter Stakeholder Group.

Tax Faculty and other meetings

Meetings held during the month included: Tax Policy & Reputation Committee; Tax Faculty Board; and the Digital assets working party.

Faculty webinars, events and podcasts

• ViDA: Move to real time reporting for businesses that operate cross-border in the EU
• ViDA: Extension of a single place of VAT registration across the EU
• Tax in Practice - November
• Budget 2025 webinar

Our monthly podcast series, The Tax Track, continues to gather new listeners and get good feedback and engagement. In the latest episode, faculty staff Lindsey Wicks, Ed Saltmarsh and Stephen Relf rate the key Budget measures against ICAEW’s ten tenets.

Media activity

The Telegraph referred to the ICAEW TAXwire article Why it’s important to check simple assessments in a piece on HMRC’s annual reconciliation process for taxpayers not in self assessment.

Ed Saltmarsh’s comments on changes to the soft drinks industry levy were picked up by The Guardian, The Times and The Herald.