Making Tax Digital
Making Tax Digital: Income Tax Simple Assessment 18 December 2015
Legislation will be introduced in Finance Bill 2016 to enable HMRC to send a Simple Assessment notice to customers with straightforward tax affairs which will set out their tax liability without the need for the person to submit a self-assessment return. The measure, outlined in the Policy Paper - Income Tax: Simple Assessment , provides a new power to allow HMRC to make an assessment of Income Tax or CGT liability without the individual first being required to complete a Self Assessment tax return. It will allow HMRC to assess a person’s tax liability on the basis of information held by it, for example it will be used where it is not possible to collect the whole of a person’s annual Income Tax liability through PAYE and HMRC has sufficient information about the individual to make the assessment. Background At March Budget 2015 the government published ‘Making Tax Easier: The end of the tax return’ setting out a vision to modernise the tax system by replacing tax returns with digital tax accounts for millions of individuals and businesses. This is now changed to Making Tax Digital . At the same time the introduction of ‘Making Tax Easier: Simpler Payment’ was announced. This set out plans to introduce legislation to remove the need for customers to complete a tax return with information that HMRC already holds, simply to pay their tax bills. This is now changed to Simple Assessment . The measure is part of the government’s commitment to abolish the tax return.
Comments on the change are being accepted until 3 February 2015 at simple.assessment@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk .
Making Tax Digital 21 December 2015
HMRC has published a document called Making Tax Digital, which outlines how they will transform the tax system so that it is more effective, more efficient and easier for taxpayers.
At the March 2015 Budget, the government set out the vision for a modernised tax system, replacing tax returns with digital tax accounts for individuals and small businesses, changing the way HMRC obtains and uses information and how customers will interact with them. Since then, HMRC has been developing the vision it set out and how they will deliver it. In the Autumn Statement and Spending Review the government announced that it will invest £1.3bn in HMRC to transform it into one of the most digitally advanced tax administrations in the world. This has been followed up with the publication Making Tax Digital , which sets out the roadmap that was mentioned in March publication Making tax easier . The roadmap provides a relatively high level outline of how taxpayers’ experience of dealing with HMRC will develop between now and 2021. The roadmap also sets out the high level journey taxpayers and HMRC will go on over the next few years, including the public consultation that will contribute to developing the detail of changes to policy and how it is implemented.
Making Tax Digital: Myth Buster 11 February 2016
A Myth Buster has been published by HMRC which may help to dispel some of the misconceptions regarding the proposals for employers to submit quarterly returns.
The Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015 announced the commitment to invest £1.3 million to transform HMRC into one of the most digitally advanced tax administrations in the world which will see most businesses, self-employed people and landlords being required to keep track of their tax affairs digitally and update HMRC, at least quarterly starting from 2018, via their digital tax account.
CIPP Policy News Journal
25/04/2016, Page 226 of 453
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker