 |
The Office of Tax Simplification was an independent office of HM Treasury, part of the Government of the United Kingdom. [1] [2] The office was created on 20 July 2010 to identify complexities in the tax system burdensome to both businesses and individual taxpayers in order to recommend their reduction. The office was tasked with publishing its findings for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider ahead of the budget. [3] The office was abolished in 2023. [4]
The initial board members were Michael Jack (Chairman), who as a former MP and Financial Secretary to the Treasury established the Tax Law Rewrite Project, and John Whiting (Tax Director) who is the first Tax Policy Director of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. [5] Jack and Whiting were appointed on an interim basis to lead the Office for the first year, and confirmed in office in September 2011. [6] Along with the members of committees established to support the work of the Office, they are not paid for their work. [5]
They were supported by a small secretariat, including tax experts from HM Revenue and Customs and the Treasury and externally funded secondees from the tax and legal professions. [5] The first set of private sector secondees were Tom Byng, Caroline Turnbull-Hall, Partha Ray and Kate Cottrell, who joined Jeremy Sherwood, Tunde Ojetola and Anish Mehta. [7]
The OTS submitted two reports to the Chancellor in March 2011. These are the Review of Tax Reliefs [8] and the Review of Small Business Taxation. [9] The Chancellor accepted some of the recommendations in his Budget announcement where he agreed to abolish 43 reliefs. [10]
In 2015, former MP Angela Knight CBE was appointed chair and in November 2016, the appointment of Paul Morton as Tax Director was announced. [11] In March 2019, Kathryn Cearns OBE [12] was appointed OTS chair. Bill Dodwell was appointed Tax Director from 15 January 2019. [13] In 2016, the OTS was put on a statutory footing by Finance Act 2016. [14]
The Office of Tax Simplification was closed by the Government of the United Kingdom in March 2023. The decision was announced on 23 September 2022 in the Growth Plan 2022, and came into effect when the Spring 2023 Finance Bill received Royal Assent. [4] The decision to close the budget was scrutinized by members of the Treasury Select Committee, including committee chair Harriett Baldwin. [15]
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to Chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the chancellor is a high-ranking member of the British Cabinet.
His Majesty's Treasury, occasionally referred to as the Exchequer, or more informally the Treasury, is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for developing and executing the government's public finance policy and economic policy. The Treasury maintains the Online System for Central Accounting and Reporting (OSCAR), the replacement for the Combined Online Information System (COINS), which itemises departmental spending under thousands of category headings, and from which the Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) annual financial statements are produced.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) is an independent economic research institute based in London, United Kingdom, which specialises in UK taxation and public policy. It produces both academic and policy-related findings.
Corporation tax in the United Kingdom is a corporate tax levied in on the profits made by UK-resident companies and on the profits of entities registered overseas with permanent establishments in the UK.
Sir Howard Kingsley Wood was a British Conservative politician. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, he qualified as a solicitor, and successfully specialised in industrial insurance. He became a member of the London County Council and then a Member of Parliament.
HM Revenue and Customs is a non-ministerial department of the UK Government responsible for the collection of taxes, the payment of some forms of state support, the administration of other regulatory regimes including the national minimum wage and the issuance of national insurance numbers. HMRC was formed by the merger of the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise, which took effect on 18 April 2005. The department's logo is the St Edward's Crown enclosed within a circle.
In the United Kingdom, taxation may involve payments to at least three different levels of government: central government, devolved governments and local government. Central government revenues come primarily from income tax, National Insurance contributions, value added tax, corporation tax and fuel duty. Local government revenues come primarily from grants from central government funds, business rates in England, Council Tax and increasingly from fees and charges such as those for on-street parking. In the fiscal year 2014–15, total government revenue was forecast to be £648 billion, or 37.7 per cent of GDP, with net taxes and National Insurance contributions standing at £606 billion.
Petroleum Revenue Tax (PRT) is a direct tax collected in the United Kingdom. It was introduced under the Oil Taxation Act 1975, soon after Harold Wilson's Labour government returned to power and in the immediate aftermath of the 1973 energy crisis, and was intended to ensure "fairer share of profits for the nation" from the exploitation of the UK's continental shelf, while ensuring a "suitable return" on the capital investment by oil companies.
Air Passenger Duty (APD) is an excise duty which is charged on the carriage of passengers flying from a United Kingdom or Isle of Man airport on an aircraft that has an authorised take-off weight of more than 5.7 tonnes or more than twenty seats for passengers. The duty is not payable by inbound international passengers who are booked to continue their journey within 24 hours of their scheduled time of arrival in the UK. If a passenger "stops-over" for more than 24 hours, duty is payable in full.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury is a junior ministerial post in His Majesty's Treasury, ranked below the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Paymaster General and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and alongside the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. It ranks at Parliamentary Secretary level and is not a Cabinet office.
The House of Commons Treasury Committee is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The committee is responsible for examining and scrutinizing the expenditure, administration and policy of HM Treasury. This includes its agencies and associated bodies, including HM Revenue and Customs, the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority, and the Royal Mint.
The starting rate of income tax, known as the 10p rate, was a special rate of personal income taxation in the United Kingdom that existed from 1999 to 2008.
The March 2010 United Kingdom Budget, official known as Budget 2010: Securing the recovery, was delivered by Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons on 24 March 2010.
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin is a British Conservative Party politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for West Worcestershire since 2010. Baldwin was Minister of State for Africa and International Development between January 2018 and July 2019. In 2022, Baldwin was elected Chair of the Treasury Select Committee.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is a non-departmental public body funded by the UK Treasury, that the UK government established to provide independent economic forecasts and independent analysis of the public finances. It was formally created in May 2010 following the general election and was placed on a statutory footing by the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011. It is one of a growing number of official independent fiscal watchdogs around the world.
The 2011 United Kingdom budget, officially called 2011 Budget – A strong and stable economy, growth and fairness, was delivered by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons on 23 March 2011.
The 2016 United Kingdom budget was delivered by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons on Wednesday, 16 March 2016.
Sir John Edward Astley Troup is a British tax lawyer, and was a civil servant at HM Treasury and then HM Revenue & Customs. He spent two periods as a tax partner at the law firm Simmons & Simmons, from 1985 to 1995 and from 1997 to 2004, and was a special adviser to Kenneth Clarke as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1995-97.
Capital gains tax in the United Kingdom is a tax levied on capital gains, the profit realised on the sale of a non-inventory asset by an individual or trust in the United Kingdom. The most common capital gains are realised from the sale of shares, bonds, precious metals, real estate, and property, so the tax principally targets business owners, investors and employee share scheme participants.
The 1988 United Kingdom budget was delivered by Nigel Lawson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons on 15 March 1988. It was the fifth budget to be delivered by Lawson during his tenure as Chancellor, and marked major changes to taxation, with reductions in income tax and changes to inheritance tax rules, as well as changes to mortgage interest relief that prevented homebuyers from being able to pool mortgage allowances. The changes announced to mortgage relief ultimately helped to further fuel an ongoing property boom which led to a rise in inflation and an increase in interest rates. Due to frequent disruptions during the Chancellor's speech, Deputy Speaker Harold Walker was required to suspend proceedings in what was described as an outbreak of "grave disorder".
"Disbanding the office established to champion tax simplification risks signalling the government is not serious about the task at hand," said Harriett Baldwin, Conservative chair of the committee."