HMRC

The House of Lords economic affairs committee is right to call for a new review of HMRC powers as the tax authority over-reaches itself with spurious tribunals and exhaustive investigations, not to mention the introduction of a 12-year time limit set out in Finance Bill 2018-19, says John Cullinane CTA, tax policy director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

CIOT hosted a speech and roundtable discussion with HMRC Chair Edward Troup and a small group of senior representatives from the tax profession on Monday last week. Mr Troup was speaking ahead of his retirement from HMRC at the end of this month. At the event he talked about how he saw HMRC and the tax profession developing in the future, including his belief that government was likely to be tempted to put further responsibilities on tax advisers in the future. Most eye-catchingly he thought one possible direction was segmentation of tax agents, categorising them with different levels of ‘risk rating’, with their clients being scrutinised accordingly.

A live blog on the Public Accounts Committee's examination of HMRC performance in 2016–17 and HMRC Estate.

A year ago, in his speech to Labour Conference, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell announced he had commissioned a review of HMRC. That review, chaired by Professor Prem Sikka, reported today.