This week's opinion

The letter from Andrew Tyrie MP chair of the Treasury Committee is a significant contribution to the debate on Making Tax Digital. You don’t need me to tell you that MTD is hugely controversial. Most of the feedback we receive at Taxation expresses concern at what is proposed (see ‘Making Tax Difficult’).

I have made no secret of the fact that I think HMRC is right to pursue a digital agenda. There is a strong case to be made for moving business tax to a real-time basis and for greater use of modern technology. Once a digital regime has bedded down we will wonder how we coped under the old system. But a change of this magnitude cannot be compressed into an arbitrary timetable. So many different things have to be in place to make MTD work. Listing just a few shows the scale of the task: changes to the legislation...