Tax Advisers consultation – have your say

Chartered Accountants Ireland is preparing a response to the latest round of consultations on proposals to regulate tax advisors.  The current consultation is titled “Raising standards in the tax advice market: professional indemnity insurance and defining tax advice”. The Government published its response to the tax advisers consultation which Chartered Accountants Ireland contributed to in summer 2020. The direction of the Government’s response agreed with the Institute’s recommendation of compulsory professional indemnity insurance as reflected in the latest consultation.

We need your feedback to build our response to the second consultation which mainly focuses onthe requirement for all tax advisers to possess appropriate levels of professional indemnity insurance. This consultation also seeks feedback on the definition of tax advice. Tell us your views by Monday 7 June 2021 on the following key questions:-

• If the government introduces the requirement for professional indemnity insurance, what further steps would you recommend?
• Are there any other costs you foresee for advisers?
• What are your experiences of obtaining professional indemnity insurance or of the market for professional indemnity insurance?
• What are your views on the government’s proposals for making information on promoters public?
• What activities should it be mandatory to cover, and why?
• Should the government specify what advice must be covered by the policy? What advice do you think should be covered?
• Who should be required to hold the insurance? Should it be the firm, the principal, everyone who is acting as a tax adviser?
• The Government intends to model the definition of who the requirement will apply to on one of the definitions currently in legislation.
• What a) benefits and b) issues are there with using the Dishonest Tax Agent definition or the Money Laundering regulations definition?
• What benefits or issues would there be in considering the financial services regulatory distinction between advice and guidance for tax advice?
• The Government’s ambition is for HMRC to share information about the adviser with the client digitally. What are your views of this?

All the questions are set out on pages 30-31 of the consultation. Email us your feedback.