HM Revenue and Customs will start sending letters this week to potential Scottish taxpayers as part of the next stage of preparations for the introduction of the Scottish Rate of Income Tax, to be announced on 16 December 2015 in the Scottish Government's Draft Budget. The letters are intended to confirm the accuracy of HMRC’s records of taxpayers who live in Scotland and will pay the new rate. They will reassure recipients that they don’t need to take any action if the address details HMRC holds for them are correct. They will go to around 2.6 million people in Scotland who are expected to be taxpayers in the 2016-17 tax year. The Scottish Rate of Income Tax comes into effect on 6 April 2016 and will be paid by UK taxpayers who live in Scotland, regardless of where they work. It will replace ten pence of all the main rates of income tax for Scottish taxpayers. Those paying the new rate will see their income tax will continue to be collected from pay and pensions in the same way as it is now. Edward Troup, Tax Assurance Commissioner and Second Permanent Secretary, HMRC said: “HMRC is taking the next step towards implementing devolution of tax powers to the Scottish Government. The new tax rate will apply to everyone who lives in Scotland. If we’ve got your address right, there’s no need to do anything." If a tax payer needs to change their address details, they can do so online at www.gov.uk/tell-hmrc-change-of-details.

CASSE held an event in the Kazbar in Waterford on Friday, 20 November. This was an introduction night for new trainees to the region and a celebratory night for those who passed the FAEs.  Although the CASSSE committee has only started fully functioning within the last few months, the committee is growing quickly and the frequency of events is increasing. There are still a number of positions available on the committee for any trainees interested in getting involved. To express your interest in joining the CASSE committee please contact the committee members on the CASSE Facebook page.

CASSI hosted their Annual Conference, 'Making Your Mark', on Thursday, 5 November 2015. The event took place for the second consecutive year in Chartered Accountants House in Pearse Street with over 60 students attending the event. Speakers on the night included Tony Nicholl, President Chartered Accountants Ireland; Karen Dillon, Head of Risk Compliance, Ulster Bank; Fiona Swan, EU Tax Manager, Riot Games; Terence O’Rourke, Chairman, Enterprise Ireland & Former Managing Partner KPMG; Cormac Lucey, Financial Services Consultant, Lecturer at UCD & Economics Commentator; Anthony Cunningham, Head of Group Reporting; Consolidations, Ardagh Group and the Keynote speaker for the evening was Ian Madigan, Irish Rugby Team. The event was concluded with a Q&A session and followed by a drinks reception in the Lombard Pub and Townhouse. CASSI would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate all students around the country who were successful in their FAE exams. For those students who did not receive the results they were hoping for, please feel free to contact the committee on info@cassi.ie for any assistance on queries relating to repeats etc. The best of luck to all students sitting the AAFRP around the country on 12 December. The committee would like to remind all students that the deadline date for changing your location for sitting the exam is Tuesday, 1 December.

As part of the OECD’s work to improve the timeliness of processing and completing mutual agreement procedure (MAP) cases under tax treaties and to enhance the transparency of the MAP process, the OECD makes available to the public the annual statistics on the MAP caseloads of all its member countries and of non-OECD economies that agreed to provide such statistics. They are now available for the 2014 reporting period.  Considered in the aggregate, MAP inventories in OECD member countries at the end of the reporting period show a continuous increase from 2006 to 2014, with a slight decrease in 2010. For those countries that reported them, the average cycle times for cases completed, closed or withdrawn increased slightly in 2014 (23.79 months) as compared to 2013 (23.57). The separation of reported MAP cases into cases with other OECD member countries and cases with non-OECD economies continues to show, in general, that more than 90% of OECD member countries’ MAP inventories are cases with other OECD member countries.  Improving the effectiveness of dispute resolution mechanisms was an integral component of the work on BEPS and was the aim of Action 14 of the BEPS Action Plan. One of the principal outcomes of the work on Action 14 is the commitment by OECD and G20 countries to a minimum standard with respect to the resolution of treaty-related disputes. Countries have agreed to report MAP statistics pursuant to an agreed reporting framework. Such reporting will provide a tangible measure of the effects of the implementation. The MAP statistics made available for later periods will also contain additional information and reports from non-OECD economies countries that do not currently report MAP statistics to the OECD.  For more information on the MAP Statistics, please visit the OECD website.

The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) has approved a Conceptual Framework for General Purpose Financial Reporting by Public Sector Entities. The purpose of financial reporting in the public sector is to provide useful information for service users and resource providers. The Conceptual Framework establishes the concepts that will guide the IPSASB’s approach to standard-setting and guidance. The completed Conceptual Framework is expected to be issued by the end of October 2014. 

Chartered Accountant Deirdre O’Connell has been appointed to the new Credit Union Advisory Committee.  Ms O’Connell, a Partner with Grant Thornton in Limerick, is one of three appointees announced earlier today, the others being Donal McKillop (Professor of Financial Services in the School of Management at Queens University, Belfast) and Joe O’Toole (the former Senator who previously served as General Secretary of the INTO and President of ICTU). The Committee members will hold office for three years from 22 September 2014. The Committee’s statutory function is to advise the Minister for Finance and such other persons as the Minister thinks fit regarding: - (a)    the improvement of the management of credit unions; (b)   the protection of the interests of members and creditors of credit unions; and (c)    other matters relating to credit unions upon which the Minister, the Central Bank or such other persons as may be specified by the Minister may from time to time seek the advice of the Committee. The Committee will be chaired by Professor McKillop.