Wyman symposium 2025

On 29 September 2025, ICAEW Tax Faculty hosted the latest Wyman Symposium on the future role of the tax adviser. The five panellists were selected to represent a broad range of perspectives. Former tax faculty chair and EY's Global Government and UK Tax Policy Leader, Chris Sanger, set the context and was followed by Paul Aplin, Deputy President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) and former president of ICAEW, who explained his experiences of digital developments and the likely next steps in AI and its impact on the profession.  

Other panellists included Jane McCormick, former head of global tax at KPMG and a member of the Tax Faculty Board, who offered a large firm perspective, and Tax Faculty Board member Chelsea Aldridge, who gave an interesting perspective on the future of tax advisers in business. Jonathan Athow, Director General Customer Strategy and Tax Design at HMRC, gave a view from HMRC on what the future tax adviser might look like and how the role of HMRC might evolve to accommodate this.  

The presentations from the panellists were followed by 30 mins of Q&As from a full  floor at Chartered Accountants’ Hall. The evening was expertly chaired by Paul Harrison, Deputy Chair of the ICAEW Tax Faculty. My thanks to the speakers and the chair for such a well presented and thought-provoking evening. The Tax Faculty is keen to explore further the suggestions and thoughts as part of a revitalised Towards a Better Tax System project. If you would like to join the debate and discussion on what the future adviser might look like, please contact me.  

House of Lords Finance Bill Sub-Committee

On Monday 13 October, Lindsey Wicks, Senior Technical Manager – Tax Policy, gave evidence at a House of Lords Finance Bill Sub-Committee session on aspects of the Government’s proposals to tackle promoters of marketed tax avoidance schemes – particularly the proposal to make a failure to notify a scheme under the disclosure of tax avoidance scheme (DOTAS) rules a criminal offence. Lindsey emphasised that while ICAEW supports the principle of the legislation, the way it is currently drafted is disproportionate and will harm growth across all sectors – a sentiment echoed by other witnesses. She argued that criminalisation of non-disclosure must be better targeted or abandoned.  

A week later, on Monday 20 October, Katherine Ford, Technical Manager – Personal Tax, gave evidence to the same committee on the reforms to agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR). Katherine highlighted that the reforms to APR and BPR could force farms and businesses to sell essential trading assets to fund inheritance tax liabilities, and that such disposals may trigger additional corporation tax, income tax or capital gains tax liabilities, resulting in double taxation. These risks threaten the viability of businesses and farms. Katherine also detailed the complications associated with the assertion that couples will have the ability to pass on £3 million tax-free between them, noting that a full £3 million allowance will only be possible in certain circumstances. 

The Autumn Budget 2025

The Autumn Budget 2025 is scheduled for 26 November 2025. On the 28 November, the Tax Faculty staff will be presenting a webinar on the Budget – please do join us for what looks to be yet another difficult Budget as the Chancellor tries to balance the books and bring the UK’s finances back on an even keel.  

The Tax Faculty do not as a rule usually become involved in Budget speculation, but one particular suggestion has caused a major alarm among ICAEW firms is the proposal for limited liability partnership (LLP) partners to be subject to some sort of ‘employers’ national insurance contributions (NIC) on the profits generated by the LLP. This proposal is causing particular concern, as explained in a recent article. The Tax Faculty has engaged extensively with ICAEW member firms to understand the issues from their perspectives and to decide whether this is an appropriate topic for ICAEW to step in and raise concerns with the Government.  

Draft tax agent legislation

As noted in last month’s news, ICAEW Tax Faculty is particularly concerned about the three sets of measures published on L-Day that impact on tax agents, namely: mandatory registration of tax agents with HMRC; increased penalties and potential criminal charges on promoters of tax avoidance schemes (see Lindsey’s evidence session report above); and further measures to tackle tax agents who facilitate non-compliance. ICAEW has always supported the objective of driving bad actors out of the tax advice market through properly targeted measures, but these measures risk damaging the tax advice market (which by and large works quite well) and which have the potential to undermine, rather than improve, tax compliance.  

Following submission of our responses to the draft legislation, the Tax Faculty, along with other professional bodies, have been involved in extensive discussions with the relevant HMRC teams with the aim of making these provisions better targeted and not imposing extra costs and burdens on the vast majority of reputable tax advisers who help improve tax compliance.  

The ICAEW’s Tax Policy & Reputation Committee continues to be actively engaged in these discussions, supported by the Tax Faculty Board. I am grateful to them for their help and assistance. I also attended a meeting of ICAEW’s Group A firms to explain the areas of concern, and I additionally briefed the Association of Practising Accountants on the issues at its meeting on 13 October. I would like to thank those firms that responded to a short questionnaire which the Tax Faculty prepared on the likely impact of the changes on member firms: the responses have helped to provide some useful insights into how firms would need to change their procedures if these proposals were enacted as drafted currently and the burdens and costs that would result. We presented these comments in a follow up letter to the Minister.  

ICAEW Tax Faculty hopes that the draft legislation will be improved in time for inclusion in the Finance Bill, which is expected to be published shortly after the Budget on 26 November 2025.   

Meetings with HMRC

During the month ICAEW Tax Faculty staff attended a number of meetings with HMRC, some in conjunction with other representative bodies. These included: the Expert Panel on Promoting Digital Shift for Income Tax, the Issues Overview Group; and the Making Tax Digital External Readiness Forum.

Tax Faculty and other meetings

Meetings held during the month included: the VAT Committee; the Tax Policy and Reputation Committee; and the Tax Faculty Board. I also met up with CIOT’s Director of Policy to discuss areas of mutual interest and concern.  

Faculty webinars, events and podcasts

On 1 October, Lindsey Wicks helped moderate an ICAEW/Intuit MTD webinar and on 8 October, Tax Faculty technical manager for VAT, Ed Saltmarsh, moderated a webinar presented by Avalara on a Finance Leader’s Guide to International Tax Compliance.  

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 and Stephen Relf were joined by Rebecca Benneyworth to talk about the latest developments concerning Making Tax Digital for income tax.  

Media activity

Business and Accountancy Daily referred to a press release issued by the seven PCRT bodies, and which included a quote from me, in its article PCRT updated to reflect ethics of third party relationships | Business & Accountancy Daily.