Frank Haskew, Head of the Tax Faculty, reports on recent developments at the Tax Faculty.
Making Tax Digital
We continue to engage extensively with HMRC’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) team. We had a call with HMRC concerning the guidance on HMRC’s developer hub because some of the issues raised are of wider interest to tax agents. We also attended an additional meeting of the MTD Representative Bodies Advisory Forum and the MTD digital engagement forum.
Raising standards agenda, etc
The Tax Faculty Board held an informal discussion with a colleague from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia and New Zealand about the advantages and disadvantages of the Australian regulatory model for tax advisers. We attended a round table workshop meeting with HMRC and other Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation (PCRT) professional bodies on 24 April 2022 to discuss the raising standards agenda and initial thinking in advance of the promised consultation document due in the summer. We also joined a round table to discuss the tax planning and related services project being undertaken by the International Ethics Standards Board.
Consultations and representations
During the period, we began preparation of a draft response to the online sales tax consultation. We also attended another round table workshop with HMRC and Chartered Institute of Taxation colleagues to consider further the problems that have been highlighted in the research and development (R&D) claim sector and how they might be addressed, as well as attending a separate discussion about HMRC’s interpretation of contracted out and subsidised R&D expenditure in the light of the decision in the Quinn case.
ICAEW Technical Manager Peter Bickley hosted a meeting of the PAYE In Industry Group, where the main topics discussed were advisory fuel rates and the difficulties with reconciling HMRC’s PAYE liabilities and payments dashboard with employer records. We made further informal written representations to HMRC on a range of employment tax and national insurance contribution (NIC) issues, including forms P11D and surrounding processes, off-payroll working tax and NIC offsets when mistakes are corrected, reimbursement of cost of charging electric cars, national insurance numbers for non-residents and the class 1A reference checker tool.
Finally, Tax Faculty staff and active members attended a round table with the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) to discuss the OTS property income review.
Committee meetings
During the period, there were meetings of the Tax Faculty Board, the Tax Policy and Reputation Committee and the Employment Taxes and NIC Committee. At the latter meeting, we gave a farewell reception to the vice chair of the committee, Kate Upcraft, to mark her retirement from practice and as a thank you for all the help and support she has given us over many years – she will be greatly missed.
Service standards
HMRC’s service standards remain a topic of concern to our members, especially dealing with post, where some long delays have been noted in dealing with less routine correspondence. We attended a special meeting of the Representative Bodies Steering Group to discuss the Agent Dedicated Line and how it is working since it was reinstated last June, as well as raising concerns more generally about service standards.
Member/HMRC outreach
During the period, I presented an update on tax developments to the ICAEW Practice Committee and I also attended a meeting of the larger firms to discuss the raising standards agenda and possible next steps.
Webinars and other events
Anita Monteith and Caroline Miskin presented a webinar on the latest developments in the MTD agenda. In this edition they were joined by Sam Wood, MTD Customer Readiness and External Stakeholder Team HMRC, and Dominick Riley, MTD Policy HMRC. Topics covered included who will be included in MTD for ITSA, the £10,000 threshold and who can join the expansion of the MTD ITSA pilot programme. They also considered what ICAEW members should be doing now to prepare for the changes. The webinar was reported in some detail by AccountingWeb.
TAXguides
Basis period reform was the subject of a Tax Faculty webinar on 17 February 2022. A number of questions were raised by participants and we have now published TAXguide 02/22, which answers some of those questions. It also provides an overview of basis period reforms, covers potential planning points and the impact of changing a business’ accounting year end date in advance of the regime coming into effect.
Our thanks go to Tax Faculty Technical Manager Richard Jones for preparing the TAXguide.