Tax law revamp will rely on independent advice

Future Tax Simplification Bills will receive full consultation overseen by an independent steering committee before they are debated in Parliament.

The consultation, designed to ensure the legislation wins wide support and is non-contentious, is a key recommendation of the Tax Law Review Committee, the working party set up to smooth the rewritten law’s Parliamentary progress. More than 6,000 pages of archaic and complex law will be revamped in the next five years.

Each Bill, after its Second Reading in the Commons, will be referred to a joint committee of both Houses. They will then return to the Commons for the Committee Stage before proceeding to Royal Assent.

Committee chairman Lord Howe of Aberavon said: ‘One crucial matter is how Parliament will adapt its procedures to allow proper debate and amendment of these Bills, but without giving scope for diversions.

‘The use of a joint committee is a very practical compromise which Parliament has used previously for this type of Bill. Although Finance Bills are dealt with by the House of Commons, the predominant purpose of the simplification Bills will be to consolidate and clarify the language of the existing law, not to make new law.’

The Chartered Institute of Taxation’s technical committee chairman, John Whiting, said the new laws must be ‘fast-tracked’. ‘We said in our representations that two bodies were needed to oversee the project with substantial private sector involvement,’ he said.

‘We feel that Parliament can rely to a fair extent on the work such bodies would carry out – and not, therefore, feel the need to consider every line afresh. The TLRC report echoes this call for an efficient process which is very encouraging.’

The English ICA’s tax faculty chairman, Simon McKie, added: ‘There’s talk of a practical compromise used before. But I don’t think so much legislation has been rewritten before.’