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Chancellor takes up
CIOT Institutes' proposal for fewer Budgets
THE Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT)
has welcomed the Chancellor's announcement that the Government will be reverting
to a single annual fiscal event. The CIOT, along with the Institute for
Government (IfG) and Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), had called for this
move in an open letter to the Chancellor in September. The letter contained some
early recommendations from a project the three organisations are undertaking to
look at how to improve Tax policy making. This will lead to a full report in
January 2017.
CIOT President Bill Dodwell commented:- "This is a welcome move from the
Chancellor. Tax change is one of the greatest causes of Tax complexity, and
having two major fiscal events a year encourages government to keep fiddling
about with the system.
No other major economic power feels the need for 2 big sets of Tax and
spending changes each year. The Chancellor has sensibly acknowledged that doing
less will enable HMRC and the Treasury to put more time and effort into making
sure the changes they do make are effective and well targeted."
The relevant part of the letter, signed jointly by Bill Dodwell for CIOT, IFS
Director Paul Johnson and IfG Director Bronwen Maddox, read:- "Return to a
Single Fiscal Event. The last 2 decades have seen a proliferation of measures in
Budgets and very long finance bills become the norm. In effect, we now have a
March Budget and a November / December Budget.
The time has come to revert to one principal fiscal policy event a year (while
recognising there may still be a need for technical changes at other times of
the year). Reducing the frequency of new significant changes of direction would
release resource for better consultation, produce higher quality legislation and
more effective implementation, make life simpler for taxpayers, and potentially
increase the impact of measures concluded upon. We also think that Budgets
should return to being principally a vehicle to announce revenue measures,
rather than spending or other policy changes."
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