Businesses urged to play part in simplifying UK tax system
Added by Love Business East Midlands | 16 October 2018
An East Midlands corporate tax expert says businesses and their advisers now have a vital role in shaping a better UK tax system by sharing their views and experiences.
Pete Miller, who is a member of the Office of Tax Simplification’s consultative committee for this project, is urging the business community to complete a confidential survey to identify where improvements could be made.
Pete said: “The survey’s findings are going to be of massive benefit when demonstrating to the government just how much the operation of our tax system could be simplified for all businesses.”
The OTS, a government body which is not part of HMRC, is tasked with identifying areas where the UK’s complex tax code could be made simpler.
Pete, of The Miller Partnership in Leicester, is among a select group of UK advisers assisting the OTS.
He said: “While the OTS’s job might seem thankless, given the length and complexity of the UK's tax code, the single most important thing that government could do for business is to make the tax code simpler to operate. It remains the chief bugbear of the vast majority of people I speak to.
“The first stage in this process involves carrying out a survey to determine how easy or difficult businesses and tax advisers find it to operate within the tax system. I would strongly encourage anyone with a business, or anyone who advises businesses, to spend a few minutes completing it.”
Pete reassured businesses that their responses to the survey would remain anonymous.
He added: “One or two people have suggested that they don't want to complete a survey that HMRC might then be able to use to target them, particularly if their answers appear to be critical of the department.
“While HMRC is represented on the consultative committee, it will not be able to see who completed the survey or which businesses advisers might represent.
“The survey is genuinely completely anonymous and is, in any case, run by the OTS and not by HMRC or the Treasury, so please don’t be scared to complete it.”
To take part go to: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/ots-business-lifecycle-review-call-for-evidence-and-survey.
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