Staff and member news

I am sorry to report that Kirsty Vassay, the Tax Faculty’s service manager, left ICAEW at the end of February. Kirsty had been with ICAEW for eleven years and her great professionalism and dedication to providing ICAEW members with the very best services possible was widely admired – we will miss her greatly but wish her all the best for the future.  

On Committee news, John Cassidy, head of the tax resolutions team at Crowe UK, has stood down from the faculty’s Compliance and Investigations Committee and will be retiring from his firm in a few months’ time. John was one of our longest serving committee members and has been a great ambassador for the tax and accounting profession for over 30 years. In addition to providing us with expert insights into the area of tax disputes, John was on the small working party which oversaw the changes to the Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation (PCRT) rules and the development of the Tax Planning Standards. The publication of the revised PCRT in 2017 was a milestone in the development of ethical standards in tax and we will miss his great knowledge and sound judgement. We wish him all the best in his retirement.  

Tax agent provisions in the Finance Bill

As noted last month, ICAEW staff and active members have continued to engage extensively with the government and HMRC to try and improve the three interlocking sets of provisions in the Finance Bill 2025-26 that impact tax agents, namely: 

• the agent registration provisions; 
• the sanctionable conduct provisions (formerly the dishonest conduct provisions in Sch 38, FA 2012); and 
• further provisions to tackle those who promote tax avoidance schemes.  

 For further information on the measures, see TAXguide 05/25.  

We held further meetings with HMRC staff on these provisions following a meeting in January with the Minister, Dan Tomlinson MP. We also provided comments on HMRC’s draft guidance on the agent registration provisions, where we expressed concern that the guidance needed to be clearer and more closely aligned with the legislative provisions as there is a danger that agents using the guidance may make mistakes.  

As noted last month, we attended the second of a planned series of meetings to explore what further can be done to raise standards in the tax advice market. At the meeting, we emphasised that before any decisions are made, we need to have better segmented data on the tax advice market and what works well and what needs improvement. We emphasised that the majority of the tax services market works well and there should be a focus on what good looks like and working with the grain of the tax advice market.  

Finance Bill representations

The Finance Bill 2025-26 has completed its committee stages, with Report Stage expected shortly and Royal Assent likely in mid-March. We wrote again to the Minister ahead of Report Stage in which we reiterated ICAEW’s concerns with two aspects of the Bill, namely the need for further safeguards in relation to HMRC’s power to temporarily suspend a tax agent’s registration and confirmation that the sanctionable conduct provisions would not be triggered in cases where taxpayers were late filing or paying tax.      

2026 Spring forecast

The Chancellor is due to deliver the Spring forecast on Tuesday 3 March. We are not expecting it to contain substantive tax measures, although we are hoping it may provide clarity on when we might expect the further consultations to be published which were promised in the Autumn 2025 Budget. If there are any tax measures, the Tax Faculty team will be reporting on them in the our TAXwire news service, so please keep an eye on developments.      

Representations

During the month we also submitted representations on the following areas: a proposed visitor levy for England; further proposals to reform the business rates system; and a call for evidence on tax support for entrepreneurs (to be published on ICAEW.com shortly). I would like to thank ICAEW staff colleagues and members from other parts of ICAEW who helped contribute to these three responses.  

Making Tax Digital

On 23 February 2026, ICAEW hosted the latest MTD live event to a packed audience at Chartered Accountants Hall. Members had the opportunity to hear from HMRC officials about how the forthcoming launch of Making tax Digital (MTD) for income tax is proceeding, as well as the opportunity to hear from tax software vendors about their products and how member firms are designing their practices and processes around the new MTD requirements. Feedback from the event was excellent. Special thanks are due to Rebecca Benneyworth and Lindsey Wicks for leading the two discussion sessions and to our sponsors for their support and hosting sessions.  

We are committed to helping members in the transition to MTD and ICAEW has several podcasts and webinars in the pipeline – let us know if there are particular areas upon which you think further guidance would be helpful.   

HMRC service standards

Although HMRC’s service data points to an improving picture, members continue to report delays and frustration with post and processing repayments. As explained in a recent article, HMRC’s service dashboard also indicates long delays in several areas, including the following where HMRC is currently processing postal requests received in March 2025 (ie, almost a year ago):  

• Marriage allowance claim. 
• Repayment of tax from an employment or pension. 
• P85 leaving the UK. 
• Tax return amendment. 
• Appeal a penalty. 
• Claim a self assessment repayment.  

We would welcome members’ experiences and whether the situation is improving.  

Tax Faculty staff also met with Chartered Institute of Tax (CIOT) colleagues to start planning a follow up to the well-received 2024 ICAEW/CIOT joint report and survey into HMRC’s service performance. We are looking to undertake the field work around September 2026. If you are interested in participating in the survey in due course, please let us know. 

Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation

The PCRT bodies revised topical guidance on research and development (R&D) has been slightly delayed following further review – it is now expected that this will be published in March 2026. As noted last month, once this guidance has been published, the PCRT group has agreed to turn its attention to revising the existing Helpsheets A to E.      

Meetings with HMRC

In addition to the meetings with HMRC staff mentioned above in respect of the tax agent provisions, ICAEW Tax Faculty staff attended several other meetings with HMRC including:  a meeting of HMRC’s Representative Bodies Steering Group; the MTD external readiness Forum; the Agent Design Digital Advisory Group; a special joint meeting of HMRC’s wealthy unit and the Compliance and Investigations Committee; and a meeting of a new cross professional group to consider reforms to substantially simplify the legislation in the area of offshore personal tax avoidance to ensure it is fit for the modern world.  

Tax Faculty and other meetings

Meetings held during the month included the monthly call of the Tax Faculty Board, the regular monthly meeting of the Tax Policy & Reputation Committee and a meeting of the VAT & Duties Committee. 

Faculty webinars, events and podcasts

The latest episode of The Tax Track was recorded at ICAEW’s event MTD Live and includes interviews with HMRC and practitioners. It will be added to The Tax Track webpage shortly. 

Media activity

The Tax Faculty was quoted extensively in the media on Making Tax Digital (MTD) for income tax, including in the Daily Express, The Financial Times (paywall), and The Sunday Times (paywall).