HMRC has announced the appointment of Mark Dearnley as the department’s new chief digital and information. Dearnley will join HMRC in October to take control of HMRC’s £500m-a-year IT operation that serves 45m individuals, 4.8m businesses and 65,000 HMRC employees.
HMRC has published revisions to its guidance on the senior accounting officer (SAO) regime, the details of which are set out in Revenue & Customs Brief 19/13.
The recently published tax assurance commissioner’s report trumpets HMRC’s recent avoidance litigation successes, but with £5bn of new avoidance being added to the tax gap each year, does the department have the right strategy, asks Jason Collins
The OECD will have to tread a delicate path between maximising tax harmonisation to enhance the effectiveness of new standards and not alienating governments protective of their fiscal sovereignty, explain Martin Zetter and Nigel Doran
Gary Richards criticises HMRC’s conduct in the GSTS Pathology case.
‘Tax avoiders go to ground’: The Financial Times has reported (2 August) an apparent drop in appetite for tax avoidance strategies among private clients.
People have until 9 August to tell HMRC about any unpaid tax on property sales, and until 6 September to pay the tax owed under the department’s property sales campaign, under a tax ‘amnesty’ HMRC introduced earlier this year.
HMRC has launched a consultation about sharing and publishing the data it collects.
Income shifting by top rate taxpayers appears to have had a significant impact on the public finances, with the rate cut from 50% to 45% increasing income tax receipts, says David Smith
What’s ahead this month, with views from experts on forthcoming developments: David Harkness considers the FATCA delay; Robert Fidgen examines beneficial ownership issues; Dan Pipe takes a look at the three consultations relevant to employment tax; David Whiscombe notes that the consultation on NIC for self-employed entertainers closes this month; and Daniel Lyons summarises the key points around the VAT treatment of manufacturer-funded refunds