The House of Commons Treasury Committee has held an evidence session to look at the UK’s proposed customs policies and procedures once the transition period expires on 31 December 2020. Witnesses in the session on Tuesday (22 September) were Allie Renison, Head of EU and Trade Policy, Institute of Directors (IOD); Elizabeth de Jong, Director of Policy, Logistics UK; Tim Reardon, Head of EU Exit, Port of Dover; and Dr Anna Jerzewska, trade expert.
Given the weakness of the economy, now is not the time for tax rises and ministers should concentrate on protecting the tax base, Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds emphasised during her appearance at Tuesday’s (22 September) CIOT/IFS debate on Tax after the Pandemic, staged as part of Labour Connected, the online Labour Party Conference.
MPs on the House of Commons Treasury Committee questioned tax experts from CIOT, ICAEW and ICAS as part of their Tax after Coronavirus inquiry from 9.30-11.30 on Tuesday 15 September. A live blog of the hearing appears below.
Think tanks are an important part of the tax policy process. Operating outside of political parties (though often with close affiliations to a particular party or wing of it) they have more licence to engage in free-thinking and to float radical new ideas, starting a debate before politicians are committed to a particular proposal. Keeping up with what well-connected think-tanks are advocating is a help in anticipating what a party, or even the government, may be thinking before it has been announced, especially as there is something of a ‘revolving door’ between the world of think-tanks and that of political advisers to ministers and their opposition counterparts.
The Public Accounts Committee has begun an inquiry into Tackling the Tax Gap. The first oral evidence session took place on Monday 7 September with witnesses Jim Harra, Chief Executive, HMRC; Penny Ciniewicz, Director General, Customer Compliance Group, HMRC; and Beth Russell, Director General, Tax and Welfare, HM Treasury.
The Treasury Committee held the first oral evidence session of its Tax after Coronavirus inquiry this week (1 Sept). The witnesses were Paul Johnson, Director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Dr Gemma Tetlow, Chief Economist at the Institute for Government, Mike Brewer, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Economist at the Resolution Foundation, and Professor Philip Booth, Senior Academic Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs. They spoke for greater neutrality in employment taxes and better taxation of property.
In a guest blog for our website, Dan Mitchell, co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, expands on comments he made in a recent BBC World Service The Real Story podcast in which he made a case for tax havens. Dan Mitchell is a public policy economist in Washington DC.
This is a reproduction of a comment article written by John Cullinane, Tax Policy Director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation, which appeared in The Independent on Monday (24 August 2020).
As debates continue over whether Holyrood has sufficient powers to weather the coronavirus economic storm, we shouldn’t lose sight of the need to ensure that its tax powers remain fit for purpose. Scotland’s devolved tax system already looked like being an election hotspot before Covid-19. It is likely to be thrust into even sharper focus as ministers balance the costs of their existing commitments against the price of lockdown. It is a scenario that reminds us that the case for improving the scrutiny of Scottish taxes has never been stronger.
