Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.
AIA

Whatever happened to the review of small business taxation? By Simon Sweetman

by
6th Jan 2008
Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

At the time of the 2004 pre-Budget report, in December of that year, HM Treasury published a discussion paper on Small Companies, the self-employed and the tax system. After some talk about targeted tax incentives for small business, and expressing the view that everyone should pay the right amount of tax, it went on to suggest that the creation of HM Revenue and Customs presents an opportunity to look at the way small businesses interact with the tax system more strategically. The government believes that this paper provides the starting point for discussion with interested parties, focusing particularly on the strategic issues raised by the approach in the tax system towards self employment and the remuneration of owner-managers of small incorporated and unincorporated businesses.

I recall that at the time I welcomed the paper, suggesting that the government meant what it said and that it wanted to hold a dialogue with what it probably called its stakeholders. And indeed it seemed to be so, with the original Administrative Burdens work going ahead, and with consultation documents issued in March 2005 (Working towards a new relationship), November 2005 (Making the new relationship a reality), and March 2006 (Progress towards a new relationship). For much of the time it seemed at least that the government was talking the talk.

Now there has been progress in some areas (if overshadowed by the disasters in delivery): but what has happened to the focus on the strategic issues? It is apparently clear that the review is over and possibly conclusions have been drawn, but neither the evidence submitted nor any statement about what is to or has been done has ever appeared in print.

The Chartered Institute Of Taxation (CIOT) has sought to know what happened by requesting the details under the Freedom of Information Act, but has for the moment been knocked back. There was a story that a Treasury official, asked about this, said that indeed the submissions had been looked at, and the final result was the increases in the small companies’ CT rate announced at Budget time.

So has it been shelved in the “too difficult” storage at the Treasury, together with any sensible approach to the domicile issue and the adoption of the Gregorian calendar for tax purposes (a matter on which perhaps we should consult the Scots, who after all realised that the New Year began on 1 January some 150 years before the rest of us)?

Attention seems to have switched from the NIC avoidance available through limited companies to the rather limited avoidance available by income shifting, and the search for the mythical level playing field seems to have faded away. It may be, of course, that it didn’t slope that far to begin with.

Tags:

Replies (4)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

avatar
By Simon Sweetman
09th Jan 2008 17:23

marx or knox ?
And i thought he was an unreconstructed presbyterian....

Thanks (0)
avatar
By User deleted
07th Jan 2008 12:56

Surprise, Surprise!
The previous Chancellor, now the Prime Minister, is an unreconstructed Marxist. That explains everything..

Thanks (0)
Richard Murphy
By Richard Murphy
08th Jan 2008 09:53

You clearly have not read Marx
Richard Murphy

Thanks (0)
avatar
By AnonymousUser
08th Jan 2008 13:37

Marx is a waste of time
History has shown beyond doubt that it is worth no one's time and trouble to read Marx (except, perhaps, to see what bilge it turned out to be).

As further proof, follow the link below to today's Times obituary of Andrew Glynn the pre-eminent Oxford Marxist economist who had to eat his words when confronted by the historical successes of capitalism initiated by Reagan and Thatcher and the concomitant collapse of communism and the Soviet Empire.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3147419.ece

Thanks (0)