Political update: December 2023

ATT and CIOT have given oral evidence to a House of Lords sub-committee looking at measures in the draft Finance Bill 2023-24. Both ATT’s Emma Rawson and CIOT’s Ellen Milner told the committee, chaired by CTA Lord Leigh of Hurley, that merging the two R&D reliefs from April 2024 would be too rushed a timetable. Ellen told peers that HMRC’s estimate of the cost to businesses of new data collection obligations ‘felt very low’, while Emma called for a more holistic approach to tackling promoters of tax avoidance schemes. (You can read our report at tinyurl.com/FBSC23).

CIOT attended Lib Dem, Labour and Conservative party conferences during the autumn, meeting with MPs, peers and party advisers and holding fringe meetings at the larger two conferences (see the report in last month’s Tax Adviser and online).

CIOT President Gary Ashford met with Shadow Financial Secretary James Murray MP in Parliament in November ahead of the Autumn Statement. Joined by the Institute’s Director of Public Policy Ellen Milner and Head of External Relations George Crozier, they discussed issues including HMRC service levels, expectations for the Autumn Statement and Finance Bill and Labour’s approach to tax policy making.

CIOT, ATT and LITRG have all submitted written evidence to the Public Accounts Committee ahead of its annual session looking at HMRC’s performance over the past year. The session will take place on 14 December. See the article in the Technical Newsdesk section of this magazine for an outline of what CIOT and LITRG said. Under parliamentary rules, evidence provided to select committees may not be published by the submitter until the committee has itself published it.