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The government must exercise caution in its plans to take the tax system online, according to the new president of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT).
Anne Fairpo, who succeeds Stephen Coleclough, believes “wild enthusiasm for the wonders of technology [ought to be] tempered with practical reality”, not least because not everyone wants to deal with their own tax affairs digitally.
The government must exercise caution in its plans to take the tax system online, according to the new president of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT).
Anne Fairpo, who succeeds Stephen Coleclough, believes “wild enthusiasm for the wonders of technology [ought to be] tempered with practical reality”, not least because not everyone wants to deal with their own tax affairs digitally.
“Quite a lot of people would rather have someone else deal with [their taxes] for them – and technological measures that overlook that do no favours to the public they are supposedly designed for, let alone the advisers that provide the support on which HMRC rely,” she will say in her inaugural presidential speech this evening.
Tax administration has long relied on digital solutions, the use of which is accelerating partly as the result of government policy to reduce the costs of admin in general through technology. Over recent years, the Revenue has encouraged online filing of tax returns and introduced its Connect system to highlight and analyse tax anomalies.
But Fairpo, a barrister at 13 Old Square Chambers and Atlas Chambers, will warn senior tax officials that “bit of caution might be in order” to avoid over-reliance and inflated expectations of how digital tech stores and analyses taxpayers’ data.
She is also set to confirm an increase in the CIOT’s support for the academic study of tax, as a centrepiece of her presidency.
The institute is to commission research into areas of tax that have an impact on its members and other tax professionals, and is launching a new Journal of Tax Administration in conjunction with the Tax Administration Research Centre at Exeter University.
