The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) have written an open letter to Phillip Hammond asking him to reform the way tax policy is made in the UK.
Their suggestions to improve and simplify the making of tax policy include:
- Stopping Autumn Statements from effectively becoming second budgets which then lead to very long finance bills.
- Starting consultation processes earlier to prevent costly and embarrassing errors and U-turns.
- Setting out now the principles and priorities for the tax system over the course of this parliament.
- Extending the roadmap approach, used for corporate tax in 2010, into other areas such as pensions and savings.
Bill Dodwell, the CIOT president, said: “Good tax policy comes from an open, consultative process in which all those affected have a voice, and consultation starts at an early enough stage of the policy development process to be meaningful. The reforms we suggest would help achieve this. We hope the Chancellor will take them on board.”
The open letter was written in conjunction with the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Institute for Government (IfG), and will be followed by a full report to be published later this year.
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