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Is the game worth the candle?

18 January 2017 / Andrew Hubbard
Issue: 4583 / Categories: Comment & Analysis
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The Treasury Committee’s report on Making Tax Digital.

KEY POINTS

  • The Treasury Committee reports on MTD.
  • Many opportunities for more efficient tax collection.
  • An April 2018 start date is wholly unrealistic.
  • The value of HMRC’s pilot schemes is questioned.
  • More evidence of costs and benefits is required.
  • Could the MTD programme be counter-productive?

The Treasury Committee certainly does not pull its punches. Its report into Making Tax Digital (MTD) is full of headline-grabbing phrases:

‘It is extremely unlikely that the vast majority of businesses will be capable of adapting to [the] start date at reasonable cost. Nor should they be expected to.

‘It is one thing for HMRC to impose digital record keeping on taxpayers. For them to impose it on non-taxpayers would be quite another.

‘Were digital record keeping as beneficial to...

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