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Welcome back – I hope you had a really good festive break.
The news of the further delay to the introduction of making tax digital (MTD) for income tax broke too late for us to include it in the final issue of last year. I think that all readers will welcome this development. It had become very clear that there were just too many fundamental problems with the scheme to enable it to be safely launched in 2024.
We at Taxation were struck by the quite different tone of the official announcements this time round. In contrast to some of the communications we have seen in the past there did seem to be a genuine acceptance that things could not go on as they had been and that a more conciliatory approach was required. That is to be welcomed. We’ve had too many stops and starts in this project to date and I think that everybody has lost sight of what MTD is actually designed to achieve.
As I have often said, a properly-designed digital first approach to tax administration offers significant advantages to taxpayer, HMRC and agents alike. What I would like to see in the new year is a genuinely open dialogue as to how this can be achieved and then the setting up of a high-level oversight board (with a mix of HMRC and private sector individuals) to evaluate progress critically and to publish quarterly reports on what has been achieved and what problems remain to be tackled.
Let’s use this opportunity to get things right: there may not be another one anytime soon.
If you do one thing…
Read the Office of Tax Simplification’s report on hybrid working (tinyurl.com/otshybriddec). There is lots here about the current rules as well as useful suggestions for reform. The OTS has gone out on a high: what possible merit can there be in its abolition?
