Tax Faculty Board appointments

The Tax Faculty Board met on 5 June 2025 and we are delighted to welcome three new board members. First, we are pleased to welcome back to the board Rebecca Benneyworth who, following her election to ICAEW Council as the Tax Faculty Representative, now also becomes a member of the board for a four-year term. Rebecca needs no introduction – being, without doubt, one of the best known and respected persons in the tax community and a great supporter of the faculty for more than 25 years. We also welcome Chris Walklett, Head of Corporate Tax at Bishop Fleming, based in Worcester, and Ruth Corkin, Principal and VAT specialist at Hillier Hopkins, in Milton Keynes. Both Chris and Ruth have been active in the Tax Faculty’s activities for a number of years now. We are delighted to welcome them on to the board for three-year terms and look forward to them sharing their expertise and insights.

Parliamentary engagement

The proposed reforms to inheritance tax (IHT) reliefs have generated much interest with parliamentarians. During the past month, we held two meetings with MPs to discuss ICAEW’s representation 30/25. First, we met with Dame Harriett Baldwin MP and we followed this up with a researcher in the office of Susan Murray MP. Both raised similar concerns about the proposed changes to the IHT rules on agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR). We were able to highlight that the IHT changes also affected business owners and not just farmers, potentially impacting on growth more widely.

ICAEW was also quoted in a Westminster Hall debate by Peter Bedford, a chartered accountant and MP for Mid Leicestershire. The debate was in connection with raising the VAT threshold to help SMEs to grow and cut compliance costs. Bedford quoted ICAEW’s previous recommendation that the VAT system needs to be simplified and the registration threshold reviewed.

MOU with the Tax Academy of Singapore

On 17 June, Tax Faculty staff, including Alison Ring and Lindsey Wicks, supported ICAEW Deputy President Caroline Smale as she witnessed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Tax Academy of Singapore, pledging closer working and co-operation between ICAEW and the academy. The teams then discussed the tax challenges faced in both jurisdictions. The MOU was put into effect the following day at the How to Fix VAT conference (see below). 

How to Fix VAT conference

On 18 June, ICAEW hosted an event at Chartered Accountants’ Hall on VAT reform. The event, which followed up on an event in 2023, included various panel and breakout sessions that considered possible areas for VAT reform, including the scope for rationalising or eliminating existing zero-rating (in particular food) and exemptions. Many thanks to all those who participated in the event, including Tax Faculty Technical Manager, VAT and Customs, Ed Saltmarsh, Stephen Dale, the Chair of the VAT and Duties Committee, and committee member Ruth Corkin. 

HMRC fielded a large team for the event, including Ian Broadhurst, HMRC’s Deputy Director, VAT Reliefs, Financial Services and International. We would also like to thank Dennis Lui, CEO of the Tax Academy of Singapore, for participating in the panel session and to his colleagues from the Tax Academy of Singapore for generously supporting the event. 

Making Tax Digital for income tax (MTD income tax)

With less than a year to go until the first taxpayers are mandated to use MTD income tax, we have been supporting our members to get ready for this seismic change in income tax reporting. One of our most popular resources is TAXguide 01/25: MTD income tax and this is being continually updated and improved.

We started the month with MTDtalk – a two-hour webinar where the Tax Faculty’s Caroline Miskin and Lindsey Wicks were joined by Nick Atkinson, Deputy Director, Strategy and Policy, Making Tax Digital, HMRC, and Jim Rogers, Senior Policy Adviser, Making Tax Digital, HMRC. There have also been webinars from several software providers with the aim of allowing members to find out more about the products available. 

As members look to get clients signed up to test MTD income tax, we are aware that the need for an engagement letter has been pressing. A draft has been published for feedback – please do let us know if you have comments.

Professional conduct

On 16 June, I chaired the latest meeting of the pan-professional body Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation (PCRT) group. At the meeting we continued a discussion on the draft changes required to be made to PCRT to reconcile it with the latest IESBA pronouncement on tax planning and related services. We hope that this can be achieved over the summer with a view to final publication in September, but it is important that all the PCRT bodies are content with the proposed amendments, and this is taking longer than expected.

The meeting also discussed progress with the three topical guidance notes being developed under the auspices of PCRT. Two of these are new, namely: 1) the application of professional standards to the provision of MTD for income tax services; and 2) AI and tax services. The third topical guidance concerns a revision to the 2020 guidance on R&D services. The Tax Faculty has published the MTD topical guidance as interim guidance pending final agreement on the text over the next few months.

Representational work

During the month we submitted a number of important consultation responses. The most important was, perhaps, ICAEW’s response to the consultation proposing further measures to close in on promoters of tax avoidance. In ICAEW’s response, we supported HMRC's efforts to challenge the 20 to 30 unscrupulous individuals and organisations involved in promoting aggressive tax avoidance arrangements. However, ICAEW believes that additional criminal sanctions are unlikely to deter these unscrupulous promoters as they already face such risks. Any further criminal sanctions should be targeted specifically at those who mass-market tax avoidance schemes. Without proper targeting, it will be the compliant majority of advisers who will bear the burden of these provisions, potentially increasing costs and making it more difficult to obtain tax advice. 

Meetings with HMRC

During the month we attended a number of meetings with HMRC, some in conjunction with other representative bodies. These included: the Representative Bodies Steering Group (RBSG); the Making Tax Digital Guidance Strategy Group; and the Additional Needs Working Group. 

At the RBSG meeting, we discussed HMRC’s latest performance statistics, progress on implementing MTD for income tax and further discussions on how the individual elements of the tax gap are calculated, in particular the SME sector, which comprises about 60% of the tax gap. It appears that most of this gap is caused by income suppression and the incorrect apportionment of expense items that include an element of private use, areas that have been longstanding concerns. 

HMRC service performance also continues to be a major concern for ICAEW members. According to the most recent information from HMRC presented at the RBSG meetings, performance has improved in recent months, but this has not as yet been reflected in feedback received from ICAEW members. At RBSG, we questioned whether HMRC’s settlement announced in the 2025 Spending Review would be sufficient over the next five years to deliver real improvements in HMRC’s performance. 

Tax Faculty and other meetings

Meetings held during the month included: the Tax Faculty Board (see above); the Tax Policy and Reputation Committee; the Compliance and Investigations Committee; and the Digital Assets Working Party. 

Representations and TAXguides

We submitted the following representations: 

• ICAEW REP 41/25: Advance tax certainty for major projects
• ICAEW REP 44/25: Closing in on promoters of tax avoidance
• ICAEW REP 45/25: Reform of behavioural penalties

We published TAXguide 03/25: Payroll and reward update webinar Q&As.

Faculty webinars, events and podcasts

Our monthly podcast series, The Tax Track, continues to gather new listeners and get good feedback and engagement. In the latest episode, we looked at income tax simple assessments and real-time reporting for capital gains tax.

The podcast was hosted by Stephen Relf, Technical Manager, with contributions from Caroline Miskin, Senior Technical Manager, Digital Tax, and Katherine Ford, Technical Manager, Personal Taxes.