Our business tax manager Angela Clegg is now on maternity leave. We wish her well and hope to report some good news next month. We are delighted to announce that her position will be covered by Richard Jones. Richard has wide experience of business tax matters. He qualified with PwC and has worked for RSM, BDO and most recently Mazars. Please make him feel welcome.

On 12 November, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury made a number of tax policy announcements, which included details of the proposed plastic packaging tax to be introduced from April 2022 and changes to the hybrid and other mismatches rules. Following earlier consultations, detailed proposals have now been tabled to tackle abuse of R&D tax credits and the construction industry scheme rules. We remain concerned that these proposed changes are disproportionate to the problems that have been identified.

On the same day, HMRC also published a summary of responses to the call for evidence on tax services. The next steps include a consultation on a proposal that all tax advisers should have compulsory professional indemnity insurance, a recommendation that we made in ICAEW’s response to the consultation. HMRC will also publish a review of how its standard for agents (which follows ICAEW’s existing code of conduct) can be enforced across the wider tax services market.  

We continue to work on representations and guidance related to COVID-19. The latest problem that has been raised by members concerns whether taxpayers and their agents will be able to meet the 31 January self assessment fi ling deadline. After discussions to identify the extent of the problem, we engaged with other professional bodies to share experiences and we then arranged a pan-professional body meeting with HMRC to highlight the problem and explore possible solutions. The meeting was productive and helpful. We are also planning to take up similar concerns about the late filing of corporation tax returns.

During the month there were virtual meetings of the Tax Faculty Board, the Tax Policy and Reputation Committee, the Practitioner Tax Committee and the VAT Committee, as well as various meetings with HMRC on a range of topical issues. Members of the Private Client Committee also held a roundtable discussion with the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) on the review of capital gains tax (CGT), and we also attended a meeting of the Agricultural Bodies Representative Group where the OTS review was also discussed.

On Making Tax Digital (MTD), we have begun to consider HMRC’s consultation document on MTD for corporation tax: if you have any comments on it please send them to Anita Monteith. We held further discussions with members and fellow professional bodies about the potential impact of the DAC 6 provisions on members of professional bodies, in particular how they might affect members advising on tax but based in the UK’s crown dependencies. We also attended the latest meeting of HMRC’s powers and safeguards liaison group to discuss HMRC’s draft report.

We submitted three representations in the period. On 30 October we submitted our response (ICAEW Representation 98/20) to the second part of HM Treasury’s review of business rates. On 9 November we submitted our second detailed response (ICAEW Representation 105/20) to the OTS consultation document on the review of CGT. On 23 November we responded (ICAEW Representation 107/20) to HM treasury’s consultation on VAT grouping, in which we recommended retaining whole establishment VAT groups and that VAT grouping should not be made compulsory.

On 30 October, Tax Faculty Committee members Stephen Dale of Hedeos Advocats in Paris and Liam Dushynsky of PKF Francis Clark in Exeter presented a highly rated and topical webinar on the customs and VAT procedures to be followed when importing and exporting goods to the EU after the transitional period.

On 20 November, Kate Upcraft, a specialist in tax and payroll, and Anita Monteith explained the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (mark three). This was a very popular webinar and, again, the feedback was excellent.

On 23 November, Peter Bickley was joined by Steve Wade of EY and Kate Upcraft for a very well-received webinar on the changes to off -payroll working from April 2021.

Well done to all our speakers and presenters. If you missed the webinars, or need to watch them again, you will find them on the webinars page of our website.