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Spy – or secondee?

21 May 2013 / John Watson
Issue: 4403 / Categories: Comment & Analysis , Admin , Avoidance

The Public Accounts Committee is wrong about the loaning of tax advisers to HMRC

KEY POINTS

  • The Public Accounts Committee publishes Tax avoidance: the role of large accountancy firms.
  • Has the relationship between advisers and clients been misunderstood?
  • HMRC’s use of professional secondees is based on mutual benefit.
  • Is the present consultation process “fit for purpose”?
  • HMRC need to acquire wide commercial knowledge..

The report of the Public Accounts Committee Tax Avoidance: the Role of Large Accountancy Firms (HC870 published on 26 April 2013) is something of a curate’s egg.

Certainly some of the comments made in its six paragraphs of conclusions and recommendations are correct.

Who after all would deny that “the UK tax system is too complex and a more radical approach to simplification is needed”?

Others such as the call for a code of...

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