I personally am not overly concerned about spreading money about in £85K chunks. As we saw in 2008, the Govt will step in at any cost to bail out the banks and protect 100% of retail deposits - never mind just £85K. It is unthinkable that they will allow a major bank to fail and take customers deposits with it. If that came to pass the whole system would collapse and we would go back to being hunter gatherers.
Making promotors of tax schemes criminally liable is fine, but they should start by making anyone involved in these jointly and severally liable for the tax that is lost. This should include the promotors, trustees, bankers, dodgy KC's, accountants that get a referral commission, the tea boy. That should focus a few minds.
I think the percentage of those who said 'no, I never do this' would be massively lower were it not a survey from HMRC. The fear being that you could get into trouble with HMRC or your professional body for giving a yes answer. Its like the police doing a survey to ask have you ever committed a crime.
This is really not a matter for accountants. It is a very complex area of law. I for one am not a data protection lawyer or IT security specialist, nor am I Yoda and so in no position to advise. If we start going through this list and asking questions like 'what security measures do they have in place' and 'why they are holding this personal information' then this starts a dialogue and we are getting sucked in to advising in an area that is outside our competence.
If the client then gets into trouble over some data breach, we don't want them pointing the finger at us/our insurers that we owed a duty of care etc. Stick to what we know.
The root problem appears to be that the whole thing is too complicated. If the ICO free resources are so good and easy to understand then we can just point the client there? Is there not a similar list there that clients can read for themselves?
Regulating the tax profession should not be ‘hard’. ‘Tax Agent’ is already defined in tax legislation and is a good starting point. Groups such as unpaid advisers, payroll agents, charities etc can initially be exempted but at least that gives us a framework to build on. As I suggested in the other thread after allowing for grandfathering I would have all future tax practitioners required to at least be members of a professional body like AAT or ATT. The exams are technician level and should not be a barrier to entry. I can’t see that existing QBE’s have anything to fear from being grandfathered into a new PB. Many will already undertake CPD, have PI and act in a professional manner which is compliant with PCRT etc so making this mandatory should see little change, possibly even improving their lot if they no longer have HMRC as ML supervisor. We then have a framework for complaints and weeding out the bad apples from the profession - including qualifieds that are involved in egregious tax avoidance that goes against PCRT. If someone could give me a mandate I would soon have this sorted.
Jon, I think you have a rather blinkered outlook of business. I, and no doubt many others have clients with no qualifications but through experience and hard work have become highly skilled in their own industry and probably would fail exams as we all know theory is somewhat different to practice.
That is a fair point, but I am talking of exams like AAT/ATT which are not that difficult and should not present a barrier to entry. If you go to a doctor, dentist or solicitor would you not expect them to have passed exams?
This is surely not beyond the wit of man. In financial services, 'investment advice' seems to be defined well enough, so 'tax advice' really shouldn't be difficult. I understand that some activities may be a bit of a grey area but at the very least, it should be easy to catch within regulation anyone offering paid tax advice.
In my view the answer is straightforward. Anybody undertaking paid tax advice needs be a member of a professional body by law. Existing unqualifieds are grandfathered into a new body, which will eventually disappear as they all retire etc. By professional body I would include technician levels such as AAT or ATT. These are not difficult exams and if you can't pass them then you shouldn't be let loose on an unsuspecting public. This will also focus the minds on errant advisers that if you get struck off, say for dishonesty or incompetence etc then you will be losing your livelihood - not simply carrying on regardless as they do now. An unregulated tax profession is untenable in this day and age. Also HMRC shouldn't be wasting its resources reinventing the wheel with its Standard for Agents when we have PCRT enforced by the professional bodies.
This sounds like a PI nightmare. If a client undertakes R&D but an advance notification has not been filed and they miss out on ££££ of R&D credit then they will likely blame the agent. Will agents file protective advance notifications as a matter of course for all ltd co clients?
Who actually appoints the people who decide this stuff? We have had settled accounting treatment of leases for decades and now we have major change imposed on us. For what benefit? As if we don't have enough to deal with. I can understand maybe for listed entities etc but for FRS102 entities? What on earth is the point of adding more disclosure requirements to S1A entities when this is not required elsewhere? Has anyone suffered any loss from not having a deferred tax note for the past few years? Brexit should be used as an opportunity to reduce red-tape not increase it.
My answers
I personally am not overly concerned about spreading money about in £85K chunks. As we saw in 2008, the Govt will step in at any cost to bail out the banks and protect 100% of retail deposits - never mind just £85K. It is unthinkable that they will allow a major bank to fail and take customers deposits with it. If that came to pass the whole system would collapse and we would go back to being hunter gatherers.
Making promotors of tax schemes criminally liable is fine, but they should start by making anyone involved in these jointly and severally liable for the tax that is lost. This should include the promotors, trustees, bankers, dodgy KC's, accountants that get a referral commission, the tea boy. That should focus a few minds.
I think the percentage of those who said 'no, I never do this' would be massively lower were it not a survey from HMRC. The fear being that you could get into trouble with HMRC or your professional body for giving a yes answer. Its like the police doing a survey to ask have you ever committed a crime.
This is really not a matter for accountants. It is a very complex area of law. I for one am not a data protection lawyer or IT security specialist, nor am I Yoda and so in no position to advise. If we start going through this list and asking questions like 'what security measures do they have in place' and 'why they are holding this personal information' then this starts a dialogue and we are getting sucked in to advising in an area that is outside our competence.
If the client then gets into trouble over some data breach, we don't want them pointing the finger at us/our insurers that we owed a duty of care etc. Stick to what we know.
The root problem appears to be that the whole thing is too complicated. If the ICO free resources are so good and easy to understand then we can just point the client there? Is there not a similar list there that clients can read for themselves?
Regulating the tax profession should not be ‘hard’. ‘Tax Agent’ is already defined in tax legislation and is a good starting point. Groups such as unpaid advisers, payroll agents, charities etc can initially be exempted but at least that gives us a framework to build on. As I suggested in the other thread after allowing for grandfathering I would have all future tax practitioners required to at least be members of a professional body like AAT or ATT. The exams are technician level and should not be a barrier to entry. I can’t see that existing QBE’s have anything to fear from being grandfathered into a new PB. Many will already undertake CPD, have PI and act in a professional manner which is compliant with PCRT etc so making this mandatory should see little change, possibly even improving their lot if they no longer have HMRC as ML supervisor. We then have a framework for complaints and weeding out the bad apples from the profession - including qualifieds that are involved in egregious tax avoidance that goes against PCRT. If someone could give me a mandate I would soon have this sorted.
That is a fair point, but I am talking of exams like AAT/ATT which are not that difficult and should not present a barrier to entry. If you go to a doctor, dentist or solicitor would you not expect them to have passed exams?
This is surely not beyond the wit of man. In financial services, 'investment advice' seems to be defined well enough, so 'tax advice' really shouldn't be difficult. I understand that some activities may be a bit of a grey area but at the very least, it should be easy to catch within regulation anyone offering paid tax advice.
In my view the answer is straightforward. Anybody undertaking paid tax advice needs be a member of a professional body by law. Existing unqualifieds are grandfathered into a new body, which will eventually disappear as they all retire etc. By professional body I would include technician levels such as AAT or ATT. These are not difficult exams and if you can't pass them then you shouldn't be let loose on an unsuspecting public. This will also focus the minds on errant advisers that if you get struck off, say for dishonesty or incompetence etc then you will be losing your livelihood - not simply carrying on regardless as they do now. An unregulated tax profession is untenable in this day and age. Also HMRC shouldn't be wasting its resources reinventing the wheel with its Standard for Agents when we have PCRT enforced by the professional bodies.
This sounds like a PI nightmare. If a client undertakes R&D but an advance notification has not been filed and they miss out on ££££ of R&D credit then they will likely blame the agent. Will agents file protective advance notifications as a matter of course for all ltd co clients?
Who actually appoints the people who decide this stuff? We have had settled accounting treatment of leases for decades and now we have major change imposed on us. For what benefit? As if we don't have enough to deal with. I can understand maybe for listed entities etc but for FRS102 entities? What on earth is the point of adding more disclosure requirements to S1A entities when this is not required elsewhere? Has anyone suffered any loss from not having a deferred tax note for the past few years? Brexit should be used as an opportunity to reduce red-tape not increase it.