This week's opinion: 23 May 2019

It gave me great pleasure to award the lifetime achievement to Stephen Banyard at this year’s Taxation awards. I had several dealings with Stephen during my time as Chartered Institute of Taxation president and he always struck me as somebody who embodied the highest standards of public service in everything he said and did.

HMRC has changed enormously in the past ten years and has undoubtedly become harder-edged – readers will not need me to tell them how frustrating dealing with the department can often be. Yet I like to think that something of that public service ethos still remains at the heart of HMRC. Almost without exception the HMRC individuals whom I have encountered over the years still adhere to those old-fashioned public-service principles and I suspect that they have been as frustrated as those of us on the other side of the fence when the systems and processes get in the way of dealing properly with taxpayers.

I hope that whoever is presenting the awards in ten or even 20 years’ time will still be able to recognise the achievements of individuals in the public service. It would be a loss to us all if they could not. Ultimately, a tax system can operate only on the basis of trust and consent.

Looking at this week’s Taxation, Kevin Slevin’s article reminds us that, when dealing with the purchase and sale of company shares, it is of utmost importance to ensure that all the legal formalities are dealt with properly. If due diligence uncovers discrepancies this can have serious consequences.

If you do one thing…

The Office of Tax Simplification’s latest report on small businesses is a typically insightful piece of work that merits study (tinyurl.com/otsmay19). Paragraphs 4.32 onwards, which discuss the role of agents, are likely to be of particular interest.