Widen the remit of the Office of Tax Simplification

That was one of the recommendations of the Institute in its letter to HM Treasury in response to its review of the effectiveness of the Office of Tax Simplification (“OTS”). The Institute also commended the formal and informal engagement it has had with the OTS over the last five years, including its current workstream which explores options to change the end of the tax year. The OTS itself published evidence last week in response to the HM Treasury review.

Overall, the following key recommendations were made:-

• The UK Government should consider how it can widen the remit of the OTS in future, in the context of both development and implementation of tax policy, whilst maintaining its independent status;
• The UK Government needs to urgently develop and begin implementing a defined roadmap to tackle tax complexity in the UK, beginning with income tax first. The OTS can play a crucial role in supporting the UK Government during the course of this work; and
• In future, the UK Government needs to be more transparent, where it can be, in setting out what it is doing in response to the various reviews, workstreams and reports of the OTS.

The OTS has also published Making better use of third party data: a vision for the future, a new report exploring ways to use third party data to make tax easier.