The Office of Tax Simplification is to examine the complexities surrounding share schemes and pensioners’ taxation, having identified these areas as having the potential to benefit a significant number of taxpayers, tackle legislative complexity and streamline tax administration.
‘For the estimated 5.6 million people of pensionable age paying tax, this area is widely acknowledged as causing too many problems for a group, some of whom are the least able to cope with them,' said OTS chairman Michael Jack in a letter to David Gauke, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury.
‘The OTS will be looking for ways in which pensioners’ tax affairs can be dealt with in a much more straightforward way – especially for those with multiple sources of income.’
He added that businesses have regularly cited share schemes as an area with ‘too many complexities and traps for the unwary’.
The OTS will aim to report to the Chancellor in time for Budget 2012. It will also carry out further work to ‘try and identify parts of the tax system that are particularly complex’.
Jack said: ‘We recognise that to tackle all the issues that were raised with us is currently beyond our present resources. However we do believe that work should now be done to define and catalogue where the really "intense" forms of complexity are in the tax system. This exercise would be extremely valuable in helping to define the future long term priorities for the OTS whilst not deflecting us from projects with a shorter time scale.’
The OTS was asked last month to ‘look closer’ at tax administration for small business and report to ministers ahead of the Budget. That report will include ‘survey work and more discussions and consultations with businesses’.
The Office of Tax Simplification is to examine the complexities surrounding share schemes and pensioners’ taxation, having identified these areas as having the potential to benefit a significant number of taxpayers, tackle legislative complexity and streamline tax administration.
‘For the estimated 5.6 million people of pensionable age paying tax, this area is widely acknowledged as causing too many problems for a group, some of whom are the least able to cope with them,' said OTS chairman Michael Jack in a letter to David Gauke, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury.
‘The OTS will be looking for ways in which pensioners’ tax affairs can be dealt with in a much more straightforward way – especially for those with multiple sources of income.’
He added that businesses have regularly cited share schemes as an area with ‘too many complexities and traps for the unwary’.
The OTS will aim to report to the Chancellor in time for Budget 2012. It will also carry out further work to ‘try and identify parts of the tax system that are particularly complex’.
Jack said: ‘We recognise that to tackle all the issues that were raised with us is currently beyond our present resources. However we do believe that work should now be done to define and catalogue where the really "intense" forms of complexity are in the tax system. This exercise would be extremely valuable in helping to define the future long term priorities for the OTS whilst not deflecting us from projects with a shorter time scale.’
The OTS was asked last month to ‘look closer’ at tax administration for small business and report to ministers ahead of the Budget. That report will include ‘survey work and more discussions and consultations with businesses’.
