Welcome to the August Technical Newsdesk

No doubt the dust will have settled by the time you read this, albeit with lots of commentary and analysis in the interim, but England lost in the World Cup semi-final to Croatia. A great achievement in the whole scheme of things, but where did it go wrong on the night? Maybe it was because in the entire 120 minutes we had just two shots on target?

So how do I compare that to the world of tax? Well, I guess you could say that our interactions with the revenue authorities are shots on target (OK, they aren’t ‘targets’, but bear with me…). Our shots are recommendations for improvements to the tax system, or to influence the nature or direction of change during a consultation process, or to help minimise systemic problems with HMRC’s systems etc. The more shots we have, the more likely we are to end up with a better tax system with fewer inequities and unintended consequences. So, even though the final whistle blew on England’s World Cup aspirations, our tax ‘match’ continues. You could say that the calls for evidence and consultations, which should take place as part of the policy development process, represented the first half. We are therefore in the early part of the second half, as draft clauses for the Finance Bill 2018-19 were published on Friday 6 July. There is no extra time or penalties (erm, save for those set out in draft clauses 30 and 31…).

There are 40 draft clauses in total, meaning a potential 40 shots on goal during this current phase of play which runs until 31 August. In practice, some of these clauses are on quite niche issues (HGV road user levy anyone?), but there are around 20 clauses where we might have suggestions for amendments / improvements to the draft legislation. And even better, instead of having just 11 players on the pitch, we have around 24,500 (members across CIOT and ATT), all of whom can provide an assist. So if you spot something in a draft clause that gives you cause for concern, please let us know at technical@ciot.org.uk or atttechnical@att.org.uk.

Having taken up so much space on my World Cup analogy, there’s not room for me to say more about the articles in this month’s Technical Newsdesk. So in that case I will leave you to read them and just add one more comment. The work of the CIOT, ATT and LITRG technical teams all rely on input both from our volunteers, and the wider CIOT and ATT membership. Whilst we have good links into HMRC, we need to have something insightful to say, based on technical expertise and / or real life experiences of tax practice and administration. So do feel free to get in touch with us at technical@ciot.org.uk or atttechnical@att.org.uk or litrg@litrg.org.uk. Help us maintain our high number of shots on target.