John Jeffrey-cook

ARTICLES

Go to page of 2

JOHN JEFFREY-COOK makes a plea for simplification.

IN HIS RECENT article 'Charity begins at home' (Taxation 28 July 2005, page 449) Malcolm Gunn discussed the impact of the income tax charge on pre-owned assets. He pointed out some of the extraordinary anomalies in the régime.

Map of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005

Compiled by John Jeffrey-Cook, CTA (Fellow), FCA, FCIS, ATT

This map is a guide that gives signposts and is a complement to, and not a substitute for, the Explanatory Notes to the Act, and the Tables of Origins and Destinations, both published by TSO (the Stationery Office). The Explanatory Notes include annexes as follows:

Annex 1: Minor changes in the law; there are 159 changes; and

Annex 2: Destinations for rewritten extra-statutory concessions.

Professional Negligence

Keel-Hauled

JOHN JEFFREY-COOK CTA (Fellow), FCA, FCIS, ATT reviews University of Keele v Price Waterhouse.

A LIMITATION CLAUSE did not relieve an accountancy firm from liability for negligence in setting up a profit-related pay scheme for a university.

Background

Finance Act

Tracking the Act

JOHN JEFFREY-COOK CTA (Fellow), FCA, FCIS, ATT marshals the amendments and debates on this year's Finance Bill marathon.

JOHN JEFFREY-COOK FCA, FTII, FCIS, ATT pinpoints the debates and amendments to this year's Finance Bill.

THIS YEAR'S FINANCE Act, with 143 sections and 40 Schedules, is the second longest ever at 501 pages. The longest was that of 2000, at 613 pages; before 2000 the record was held by that of 1994 at 463 pages.

Is this the oldest tax practice still running, asks JOHN JEFFREY-COOK FTII, FCA, FCIS, ATT.

THIS MAGAZINE WAS the first on taxation when Ronald Staples, a former Inspector of Taxes, started it on 1 October 1927. Three years later he led the formation of The Institute of Taxation. It is therefore somewhat surprising to find that specialist tax practices existed much earlier.

The greatest change to the collection of income tax since 1803 was a remarkable success, says JOHN JEFFREY-COOK FTII, FCA, FCIS, ATT.

For a comment on the lamentable way in which the whole of this year's Finance Bill was bulldozed through the House of Commons, with a supine Opposition failing to have a single clause dropped for reintroduction and debate after the General Election, see the article by Robert Maas, 'There Must Be A Better Way', in Taxation, 21 June at pages 279 to 281.

This Bill must hold the record for the Finance Bill with the fewest amendments, a mere six.

Three clauses and one Schedule were added:

The tax year 2001-02 means the year of assessment beginning on 6 April 2001, as section 832(1), Taxes Act 1988 tells us, but as my grandson Sam would say – why? Sam is unlikely to stay long enough for the full answer, because the origins lie some 2,700 years ago.