.png)
.png)
Francesca Lagerberg, head of the national tax office at Grant Thornton UK, says the 2003-04 review 'dropped into a big, black hole' but ought to be retrieved in order to provide a 'holistic and overarching' view of how small businesses are treated in their dealings with the HMRC.
'Now seems to be a good time to see what can be done', she said.
Ms Lagerberg pointed out how small firms 'want a small, uncomplicated system' but are expected to deal with the 'very high burden' of 'frequent administrative changes, the need to provide the same information many times, and long-winded procedures'.
She added: 'These all stop them doing what they do best, which is running small businesses'.
Francesa's remarks follow those made by the Public Accounts Committee, a cross-party group of MPs that has criticised the red-tape involved in the 'ridiculous' tax administration for small businesses.
Start-up firms, claimed the group, are being 'frustrated' by the need to fill in a form for every tax they pay and should instead be allowed by HMRC to register only once.
The committee's chairman, Edward Leigh, said: 'The last thing anyone starting a new business wants to do is spend a lot of time talking to the taxman - but new businesses are frustrated by having to register separately with HMRC for each and every tax they have to pay.
'This is because the department is hampered in having a separate computer system for each tax. It must push towards a system where a new business registers just once for all the taxes it must pay.
'Providing each business with a unique tax reference number would be an important step towards the department being able to have an overview, for each business, of all of its tax affairs.'
