" Hook had to physically re-post the quarterly data into IRIS Personal tax from a printout before they could make the submission. " This surely means that it was not MTDfB compliant?
I'd rather hope the committee would question the role of the parliamentarians who continue to make tax ever more complex with changes at every budget without looking at reappraising the whole system or even at the simplifications that the OTS has proposed. It is no wonder there are so many loopholes that can be exploited and the solution is in their hands: they write the law.
As always, it depends on what you mean by "accountants" and on your timescale. My views ... Bookkeeping has been going for years, but not yet entirely gone. Accounting in terms of record keeping, preparation of basic financial statements and tax compliance is/will be going shortly. The more complex tax advice will eventually go as AI bites as the interpretation of complex IFRS accounting standards and judgement calls on areas such as valuations, provisions, etc but that is further off. Many of the advisory and interpretive roles of public accountants will take even long, if ever, to fall to AI and the same applies to those functions that finance directors carry out.
The need for auditors (in a general usage of this word) to check on the quality of input and the reliability of output will probably increase.
As you say there has been years of hand-wringing and discussion over this topic which is, candidly, not easy. It makes one dispair therefore of the powers that be within the EU that they come out with this consultation now with a deadline of 3rd January. Call it four weeks after taking Christmas into account.
Given how long they have shilled and shalled around the subject it would have hardly been the end of the world to give a 3 month period which would allow for sensible debate within organisations before they responded. I wonder if they want, or expect, serious considered responses
No-one is out to get the accountants I agree that the current government is making tax avoidance harder. I don't agree that this translates to "let's get the accountants". Frankly, if marketed tax schemes and disguised employment schemes went tomorrow I, and I speak as an accountant, would not shed a single tear. We shouldn't be advising our clients on aggressive tax avoidance schemes in the first place and if people go into them regardless, then they should plan and expect for those schemes to be outlawed at some point. We certainly have to advise clients on tax, not least because the rules are so complicated. And this is where I will agree with the article - if tax was simplified there would be less need for client advice, hopefully (although not certainly) less scope for aggressive avoidance, and we could concentrate on providing clients with a worthwhile service in improving their businesses. We all have to spend far too long on tax matters in what is ultimately a no-win game. I've written a piece on my new blog, baccma.blogspot.co.uk, which covers my views on the LLP mess and concludes that we would be in a far better place now if HMRC treated limited partnerships like limited companies and in an even better place if government would bite the bullet and merge income tax and national insurance.
The LLP taxation rules were poorly thought through in the first place, in my view. The result of this was that many organisations structured themselves as LLPs to minimise their National Insurance payments. Ironically, of course, given the complaints now being made, many of these organisations were advised by accountancy or legal firms on how to do this.
Unfortunately now what we have is a change in the rules which will penalise both the bad and the good and increase the complexity of the tax legislation still further. As I say, this was inevitable. Some of us predicted it (dare I say) the moment the rules were brought in and it became obvious that LLPs could be used in this way.
I still do not understand why LLPs were not taxed the same way as companies from the start. After all, they have limited liability like companies, they follow much the same law and they report publically in the same way as companies. If they had been, the whole issue would never have arisen.
I attended partly to talk to people at the ICAEW Business Advice Service stand (as a member of the BAS scheme), partly to listen to a couple of talks, partly to get a feel for any changes in accountancy software and partly to see what non-accountancy services business service providers were offering.
I left shortly after I had arrived without achieving any of those goals (although I managed a short chat with a representative of the new Business Bank). All the various lecture areas were belting out the talks over hugely amplified speakers - the big stands in the middle of the hall were even doing so without out any type of sound barriers around the lecture areas.
I found it quite impossible to talk to anybody. Not wishing to lose my voice or my mind or gain a splitting headache, I left rapidly.
I think, from my short visit, many of your comments are probably true but my impression was a fleeting one. How anybody could gain a client in that environment beats me. If the organisers can organise all the lectures into sound-proof break-out areas, I might try again in a future year, otherwise I shall be staying far away. Unless, of course, I am a speaker. A microphone would be the only way to compete.
My answers
" Hook had to physically re-post the quarterly data into IRIS Personal tax from a printout before they could make the submission. " This surely means that it was not MTDfB compliant?
I'd rather hope the committee would question the role of the parliamentarians who continue to make tax ever more complex with changes at every budget without looking at reappraising the whole system or even at the simplifications that the OTS has proposed. It is no wonder there are so many loopholes that can be exploited and the solution is in their hands: they write the law.
As always, it depends on what you mean by "accountants" and on your timescale. My views ... Bookkeeping has been going for years, but not yet entirely gone. Accounting in terms of record keeping, preparation of basic financial statements and tax compliance is/will be going shortly. The more complex tax advice will eventually go as AI bites as the interpretation of complex IFRS accounting standards and judgement calls on areas such as valuations, provisions, etc but that is further off. Many of the advisory and interpretive roles of public accountants will take even long, if ever, to fall to AI and the same applies to those functions that finance directors carry out.
The need for auditors (in a general usage of this word) to check on the quality of input and the reliability of output will probably increase.
As you say there has been years of hand-wringing and discussion over this topic which is, candidly, not easy. It makes one dispair therefore of the powers that be within the EU that they come out with this consultation now with a deadline of 3rd January. Call it four weeks after taking Christmas into account.
Given how long they have shilled and shalled around the subject it would have hardly been the end of the world to give a 3 month period which would allow for sensible debate within organisations before they responded. I wonder if they want, or expect, serious considered responses
No-one is out to get the accountants
I agree that the current government is making tax avoidance harder. I don't agree that this translates to "let's get the accountants". Frankly, if marketed tax schemes and disguised employment schemes went tomorrow I, and I speak as an accountant, would not shed a single tear. We shouldn't be advising our clients on aggressive tax avoidance schemes in the first place and if people go into them regardless, then they should plan and expect for those schemes to be outlawed at some point. We certainly have to advise clients on tax, not least because the rules are so complicated. And this is where I will agree with the article - if tax was simplified there would be less need for client advice, hopefully (although not certainly) less scope for aggressive avoidance, and we could concentrate on providing clients with a worthwhile service in improving their businesses. We all have to spend far too long on tax matters in what is ultimately a no-win game. I've written a piece on my new blog, baccma.blogspot.co.uk, which covers my views on the LLP mess and concludes that we would be in a far better place now if HMRC treated limited partnerships like limited companies and in an even better place if government would bite the bullet and merge income tax and national insurance.
There was an inevitability about this
The LLP taxation rules were poorly thought through in the first place, in my view. The result of this was that many organisations structured themselves as LLPs to minimise their National Insurance payments. Ironically, of course, given the complaints now being made, many of these organisations were advised by accountancy or legal firms on how to do this.
Unfortunately now what we have is a change in the rules which will penalise both the bad and the good and increase the complexity of the tax legislation still further. As I say, this was inevitable. Some of us predicted it (dare I say) the moment the rules were brought in and it became obvious that LLPs could be used in this way.
I still do not understand why LLPs were not taxed the same way as companies from the start. After all, they have limited liability like companies, they follow much the same law and they report publically in the same way as companies. If they had been, the whole issue would never have arisen.
Business Start-up Show
I attended partly to talk to people at the ICAEW Business Advice Service stand (as a member of the BAS scheme), partly to listen to a couple of talks, partly to get a feel for any changes in accountancy software and partly to see what non-accountancy services business service providers were offering.
I left shortly after I had arrived without achieving any of those goals (although I managed a short chat with a representative of the new Business Bank). All the various lecture areas were belting out the talks over hugely amplified speakers - the big stands in the middle of the hall were even doing so without out any type of sound barriers around the lecture areas.
I found it quite impossible to talk to anybody. Not wishing to lose my voice or my mind or gain a splitting headache, I left rapidly.
I think, from my short visit, many of your comments are probably true but my impression was a fleeting one. How anybody could gain a client in that environment beats me. If the organisers can organise all the lectures into sound-proof break-out areas, I might try again in a future year, otherwise I shall be staying far away. Unless, of course, I am a speaker. A microphone would be the only way to compete.