Round-table meeting with the Minister

In the aftermath of the Budget and the publication of the corporation tax roadmap, I attended a round-table meeting to discuss the roadmap with the Exchequer Secretary (XST), James Murray MP. Participants provided feedback on the roadmap and, in particular, that the tax landscape for businesses needs to be considered holistically and that what is really needed is a business tax roadmap. Other points raised included continued concerns about HMRC’s service performance and the government’s strategy for digitalising the tax system.

ICAEW/CIOT joint report into HMRC’s service standards

On 11 December 2024, ICAEW’s Tax Faculty and the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) launched a joint report on tackling HMRC’s customer service challenge. This included some key findings from a six-week data gathering period and we made 10 practical recommendations that could drive improvement. The launch event was attended by participants that contributed to the study, HMRC and other representative bodies. HMRC is keen to engage further as the report fits with the XST’s three priorities for HMRC (closing the tax gap, improving customer services and modernising HMRC). 

The report has been covered in Accountingweb and Bloomberg. Calls have been made for the bodies to present the findings to the subcommittee of HMRC’s Board that is focusing on improving HMRC’s customer services and for the exercise to be repeated in 2025. My particular thanks go to ICAEW’s Ed Saltmarsh and Lindsay Scott at the CIOT for their great management of the project and presenting at the launch event.

To learn more about the report, see this news item.

Finance Bill 2024/25

During the month, the Tax Faculty team submitted briefings for MPs on the Finance Bill (see below). These covered the mid-year change to rates of capital gains tax, VAT on private schools, stamp duty land tax for second dwellings, the abolition of the furnished holiday lettings rules, changes to the rules for employee ownership trusts, and the detailed changes to rules for non-domiciled taxpayers. The Tax Faculty has produced a detailed news item which has links to all the briefings. ICAEW’s public affairs team have received acknowledgements from both the XST’s office and Gareth Davies’ office (shadow XST) saying that the briefings were helpful.

Meetings with HMRC

During the month we attended a number of meetings with HMRC, usually in conjunction with other representative bodies. These included: 

• the Representative Bodies Steering Group, where we discussed the latest HMRC service performance statistics and HMRC’s digital strategy; 
• a meeting with HMRC and HM Treasury to consider the government’s latest thinking concerning simplification (referred to as the Simplification Announcement Status Update group, or SASU for short!); 
• a special pan-professional meeting at which HMRC presented a detailed insight into the methodology and highlights from HMRC’s 2024 tax gap report, which was followed by a detailed Q&A session; and 
• a regular catch up between Tax Faculty staff and HMRC’s Making Tax Digital team.

Other meetings

On 4 December 2024, Tax Faculty officeholders and staff attended a dinner with opposite numbers from CIOT. The dinner was hosted by CIOT and we discussed various areas of mutual interest including the publication of the joint report referred to above, forthcoming Finance Bill representations, a joint conference ICAEW/CIOT are undertaking on 11 March 2025 around the theme of HMRC at 20 years, as well as considering which other areas the two bodies may work together in 2025. I would like to thank our CIOT colleagues for hosting the dinner.

On 5 December, Ed Saltmarsh presented at HM Treasury’s (HMT’s) VAT & Excise Away Day on ICAEW’s How to fix VAT campaign and the lessons we have learned from engaging with leading VAT experts for this campaign. As a result of this engagement, HMT has indicated that it would like to have more regular dialogue with ICAEW on this subject.

On 12 December, Lindsey Wicks attended CIOT’s Technical Policy and Oversight Committee.

Representational and policy work

On 11 December, the faculty’s Richard Jones and Angela Clegg met with representatives from HMRC to discuss proposed Guidelines for Compliance that HMRC is planning to issue relating to tax filing positions. This is an ongoing project and through this engagement we are ensuring that any guidance issued by HMRC is in line with professional conduct in relation to taxation (PCRT). 

Representations and TAXguides

The Tax faculty has published the following representations:

ICAEW REP 082/24: Finance Bill 2024-25, cl31 and Sch6 (EOTs)

ICAEW REP 086/24 Finance Bill 2024-25: Clause 7 and Schedules 1 & 2 – Capital gains tax – rates of tax

ICAEW REP 087/24 Finance Bill 2024-25: Clause 25 and Schedule 5 – Furnished holiday lettings

ICAEW REP 088/24 Finance Bill 2024-25: Clauses 50-53 – Stamp duty land tax – Increased rates for additional dwellings

ICAEW REP 089/24 Finance Bill 2024-25: Clause 47 – Value added tax – Removal of exemption for private school fees

ICAEW REP 091/24 Finance Bill 2024-25: Clauses 21 and 37-46 and Schedules 8-13 – Replacement of special rules related to domicile

TAXguide 08/24: Payrolling of benefits-in-kind and expenses webinar Q&A provides answers to 65 questions asked in the Tax Faculty’s webinar on 16 October 2024 on payrolling of benefits-in-kind. A recording of the Tax Faculty’s webinar, which was presented by Ian Holloway and Peter Bickley, is available to watch on demand. Many thanks to Ian, Peter and other members of the employment taxes committee for producing the TAXguide. 

PCRT

As reported in previous months, the pan professional bodies that form the PCRT group are considering how the upcoming changes to the International Ethical Standards Board (IESBA) code in relation to tax planning and related services might be reconciled with the existing PCRT. We have engaged in further discussions with IESBA and hope that the position will be resolved early in 2025. 

The PCRT group has also established working groups to consider whether the PCRT needs to be revised to reflect the MTD changes and the implications of adopting AI in providing tax services. 

Tax Faculty meetings

During the month there were meetings of the Tax Faculty Board, the Tax Policy and Reputation Committee, the Technical and Oversight Committee, the Compliance and Investigations Committee, the Practitioner Tax Committee, the Employment Taxes and NIC Committee and the Business Tax Committee. 

Lindsey Wicks also attended a meeting of the ICAEW’s Practice Committee where we discussed HMRC service standards and Making Tax Digital. 

Faculty webinars, events and podcasts

Our monthly podcast series The Tax Track continues to gather new listeners and get good feedback and engagement. In our latest episode, Caroline Miskin explained what members need to think about ahead of the introduction of MTD in April 2026 and Adelle Greenwood covered the upcoming changes to the payrolling of benefits in kind. The podcast was introduced and chaired by Stephen Relf. 

On 13 December the Tax Faculty held a well-received webinar on VAT on private school fees. Many thanks to our two presenters Sue Rathmell, VAT Partner at MHA, and Ruth Corkin, Principal in indirect tax at Hillier Hopkins, for their excellent presentations. The webinar was moderated by Ed Saltmarsh, VAT and Duties Manager at ICAEW.

Caroline Miskin and Stephen Relf, alongside Sharon Cooke, also delivered the latest Tax in Practice webinar for ICAEW’s Small Practitioners Community to discuss topical tax issues impacting practice.