The ICAEW Library holds a large collection of UK Finance Acts and Finance Bills, as well as a range of related material, including explanatory notes, transcripts of Parliamentary debates, and ICAEW representations.
This material can help you to trace the origins, evolution, and implications of specific Finance Act clauses, particularly in the case of historical Acts for which online coverage may be patchy.
Here, we provide an overview of the Finance Bills, Finance Acts and related publications held in our collection, as well as pointers as to where such material may be accessed online or in other libraries (where applicable). If you wish to view print material from our collection please contact the enquiry team ahead of your visit, as some material is held off-site.
For more detailed information on particular Bills and Acts, please see our guides to UK Finance Bills and Finance Acts.
Finance Acts
| Print holdings/coverage | Notes |
|---|---|
|
The Library holds copies of Finance Acts passed between 1894–1939 within annual bound volumes of statutes, and those passed from 1940 onwards as standalone publications. |
The full texts of most Finance Acts passed since 1895 are available online via legislation.gov.uk. In addition to the ‘official’ published versions of the Acts as enacted, the Library also holds annotated copies of some Finance Acts. |
Finance Bills
| Print holdings/coverage | Notes |
|---|---|
| The Library holds copies of Finance Bills published from 1951 to the present. |
Finance Bills from 2008 onwards are accessible online via bills.parliament.uk. Finance Bill 2006 and Finance Bill 2007 are available via publications.parliament.uk. |
Explanatory notes on Finance Bills
| Print holdings/coverage | Notes |
|---|---|
| The Library holds explanatory notes on Finance Bills from 1994, 1998, 1999, 2001, and 2003–present. |
These are notes prepared by the Treasury and/or the Inland Revenue / HMRC, to assist readers in understanding the Bill. They tend to cover each clause in turn. Explanatory notes from 1997 onwards are available online via the following links: 1997 | 1997 (No. 2) | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 – 2010 (March) | 2010 (July) | 2010 (No.2) [September] | 2011 – 2015 (March) | 2015 – present Earlier sets of notes are held in print format at King's College London and at the National Archives. These have been subject to a 30-year confidentiality ruling, but as of July 2024 most are in the public domain and may be consulted on request. |
Parliamentary debates: Commons and Lords chambers
| Print holdings/coverage | Notes |
|---|---|
| The Library holds transcripts of ‘floor of the House’ Finance Bill debates for the period 1946–2009. |
These are records of Finance Bill debates which took place in the main Chamber of the House of Commons or the House of Lords, including Committee of the Whole House debates in the Commons. Transcripts of many ‘floor of the House’ Finance Bill debates – from both the Commons and the Lords – are available online via hansard.parliament.uk. Debates not available via the above site may be available online via the Commons Hansard archive or the Lords Hansard archive. |
Parliamentary debates: Standing Committees / Public Bill Committees
| Print holdings/coverage | Notes |
|---|---|
|
The Library holds transcripts of Standing Committee / Public Bill Committee debates on Finance Bills for the period 1968–2015 (with some gaps). Our collection also includes minutes of Standing Committee proceedings on the Finance Bill, 1972-1977. |
These are transcripts of Finance Bill debates conducted by Commons legislation committees in a committee room, rather than in the main Chamber of the House of Commons. In the course of these debates, MPs appointed to the committee examine the Bill in question clause-by-clause, and consider any proposed amendments. The texts of Public Bill Committee debates on Finance Bills from the 2015-16 Parliamentary session onwards are available online via hansard.parliament.uk. Transcripts of Public Bill Committee debates from 2006-07 to 2014-15 can be accessed via bills.parliament.uk. Standing Committee debates from 1997-98 to 2005-06 are available online via the Public Bill Committee debates archive. |
ICAEW representations
Since the early days of its existence ICAEW has periodically issued publications setting out the considered response of the Institute to the provisions of particular Finance Bills.
At first these were published as standalone memoranda which were then reproduced in publications such as The Accountant and The Accountant Tax Supplement. The Memorandum on the Finance Bill 1969, held in the Library collection, is one example.
Since 1972, these publications have been issued in numbered series, and have over time come to be known as ‘representations’. Until 1999, all representations were issued as Technical Releases. Since then, the Institute has taken steps to separate Technical Releases (which provide guidance) from representations (responses to consultation documents).
The Library holds a complete collection of ICAEW Technical Releases from 1972 onwards, and all representations published in the TAX REP and ICAEW REP series. To browse our holdings of ICAEW representations and memoranda on Finance Bills, please follow the link below.
To request copies of representations, contact us by telephone on +44 (0)20 7920 8620 or email library@icaew.com. Please give a contact telephone number in your email so we can call you back.
Further information on ICAEW's representations, and how to access them, can be found on the consultations and representations page, and in the Library’s guide to Technical Releases and representations.
Books and digests
The Library holds a range of books and digests containing information and expert commentary on particular Finance Bills and Finance Acts.
To browse these publications, please follow the link below.
Notable series held in the collection include:
- Finance Act handbook, 1992–present (LexisNexis)
- Finance Act: a guide to the changes in taxation introduced by the Finance Act, 1990–1995; 2002–2007 (Ernst & Young)
- Finance Bill handbook, 1992–2000 (Butterworths)
To find out how you can borrow books from the Library please see our guide to borrowing books.
You can obtain extracts of books and reports through our document supply service.
Journal articles
Our collection includes a wide range of journals focused on accountancy, taxation, and related topics. Many of these journals have – at various times – published articles covering Finance Bills, Finance Acts, and their respective provisions.
To browse abstracts of selected articles in our collection covering Finance Bills and Finance Acts (from 1993 onwards), please follow the link below.
For more information on the journal articles on Finance Bills and Finance Acts held in the Library collection, please contact the enquiry team. We can search the collection for you to find articles relevant to your query. Several journal titles held in our collection, including Accountancy and The Accountant, contain articles on Finance Bills and Acts which are not abstracted on the Library catalogue.
You can obtain copies of articles through our document supply service.
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