By the time this appears in print, we will have submitted our response to the consultation. We have engaged extensively with members, the six other PCRT bodies, the insurance industry and HMRC. While we support, in principle, that all providers of tax services should hold professional indemnity insurance (PII), we are concerned about whether the insurance industry has the capacity – as well as the appetite – to provide the necessary cover, and also whether it will merely result in higher PII premiums for professional tax advisers in what is already a hard PII market. In addition, the proposed definition of what is tax advice for these purposes needs careful consideration because there is a danger that a wide definition will bring in many types of services that would not ordinarily be caught, which could further increase the cost and admin burdens that will ultimately have to be borne by consumers.

We continue to receive many reports of poor service standards across a range of HMRC’s activity, including lengthy waits before getting through to HMRC and delays in responding to post and obtaining UTR and VAT registration numbers. We have had discussions with other professional bodies and have raised the issues in various meetings and forums with HMRC, including a detailed discussion at a meeting of the Representative Body Steering Group. We also called on HMRC to work with the professions to put in place a clear recovery plan. As a first step, HMRC relaunched its agent dedicated line on Monday 14 June with a commitment to a maximum waiting time of 10 minutes. As part of this trial, HMRC is asking agents not to use the line where alternative digital services are available.

During the period, we continued to have an active engagement with HMRC on the Making Tax Digital (MTD) quarterly reporting requirements, which have the capacity to impose substantial extra burdens on businesses and agents at a time when most businesses want to focus on recovering from the pandemic. We also discussed HMRC’s proposals to persuade those businesses that have still not signed up to MTD for VAT to do so.

We continued to gather comments on the tax administration framework review and more timely payment. Along with other professional bodies, we participated in a number of round tables with HMRC on the tax administration framework. Given the wide-ranging nature of the proposals in the latter review, we are concerned about whether HMRC has the necessary skills, resources and budget to deliver on such a major project, especially given that HMRC already has so much on its plate with COVID-19, Brexit and its regionalisation programme. On the more timely payment consultation, we remain unconvinced that advancing payment will achieve much of a cash windfall for the government when you take into account the potential disruption and cash-flow problems that many businesses will face.

During the period, we attended a number of regular liaison meetings with HMRC staff , including the Issues Overview Group and the Joint VAT Consultative Committee. We also held a number of meetings with HMRC to discuss specific topics, which included agent services issues, HMRC’s performance against its Charter, and proposed further reforms of the penalties rules.

During the period, there were virtual meetings of the Tax Policy and Reputation Committee and the MTD soft ware advisory group.

On 7 May, Kate Upcraft and Anita Monteith presented a webinar on how the final-phase Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme calculations will work. On 10 May, Andrew Constable, of Moore Kingston Smith, and Richard Jones presented a webinar on SME and OMB tax planning, focusing on the extension of the carry-back rules in the Finance Act 2021. On 11 May, Anita Monteith joined Rebecca Benneyworth for a reprise of our TAXtalk series. Finally, on 25 May, Kate Upcraft and Peter Bickley presented an update on the key changes to employment taxes in 2021. You can watch them again by following the links on the webinar pages.

We published three TAXguides in the period. They were an update to our existing guide to the CGT principal private residence relief by Gillian Banks of PwC, off -payroll working employment status Q&As by Mark Hammerton of Eversheds Sutherland, and a further guide to the tax implications of the COVID-19 support schemes by our tax manager, Caroline Miskin.