The Spring Statement was held on 23 March 2022. The Tax Faculty wrote various news items and an overview for ICAEW Insights pages, as well as contributing quotes to an ICAEW news release. Members of the Tax Faculty also met online with a senior HMRC Director and a member of HM Treasury’s staff to discuss the Spring Statement. On 24 March, the Tax Faculty staff presented a special webinar on the Spring Statement. On the same day, we contributed a section on the Spring Statement to an ICAEW Insights podcast. We also updated TAXguide 01/22: Payroll rates, allowances and thresholds in 2022/23 to reflect the changes announced in the Spring Statement. 

We continued our ongoing engagement with HMRC’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) team, where the current focus is on the extension of MTD VAT from April 2022. In addition, we met with the team to discuss the expansion of the MTD ITSA pilot from April 2022 and the tertiary legislation for MTD ITSA. We also attended a meeting of the MTD Representative Bodies Advisory Forum.

On 18 March, we held an informal meeting of members drawn from the Tax Faculty Board and the Tax Policy and Reputation Committee to discuss the possible regulation of the tax profession and to help inform our positioning in advance of a round-table workshop with HMRC and other professional bodies on 24 April 2022.

We convened a working group of Tax Faculty members to discuss ICAEW’s consultation on proposed new CPD requirements for ICAEW members in practice. 

During the period, we submitted representations on proposals from the Welsh government for local variations to Welsh land transactions tax rates for second homes and holiday lets and on HMRC’s proposals for earlier registration for income tax self assessment purposes of those who are in receipt of new sources of income from self-employment or property letting.

As well as seeking clarification on class 2 national insurance contributions (NIC) following the Spring Statement changes, we made informal representations to HMRC on a range of employment tax and NIC issues, including an invitation to comment on negative employment income. We also attended a range of regular and ad-hoc meetings covering a wide variety of subjects, including the Collection of Student Loans Group, changes to the process to claim tax relief on employment expenses, the Additional Needs Working Group, the Virtual Communications Group, the Small Business Technical Forum, the Penalty Reform Representative Bodies Forum and the Employment and Payroll Group. 

As reported in recent months, we continued our extensive engagement with HMRC and colleagues from CIOT in relation to problems in the R&D claims sector and, during the period, attended a working group meeting to consider subcontracted and subsidised R&D claims. Finally, we also attended a meeting with the Office of Tax Simplification to discuss future tax simplification policy.

During the period, there were meetings of the Tax Faculty Board, the Tax Policy and Reputation Committee, the Employment Taxes and NIC Committee, the VAT and Duties Committee, and the Practitioner Tax Committee. 

We remain concerned about HMRC’s service standards and, in particular, we continue to receive reports of delays in responding to post. We also met with other professional bodies to discuss HMRC’s performance and service standards as compared with the published Charter standards.

During the period, I presented an update on tax developments to the ICAEW Practice Committee, and Caroline Miskin attended virtual meetings of the Southern Small Practitioners group and the West Midlands Society tax discussion group. 

I also made a presentation to HMRC’s annual tax policy school on how to improve tax policymaking, and I sat on the panel of judges to assess the attendee teams’ responses to the tax policy challenge, which they were set at the beginning of the school. 

On 23 March, we held a webinar, ‘IR35: Taking stock one year on’. The webinar was presented by Richard Maitland, Partner and specialist in employment tax at MHA and was moderated by ICAEW Technical Manager Peter Bickley. For details of our Spring Statement webinar, see the section above. For full details of our webinar programme for the remainder of 2022, please see our website.