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Formal regulation of the tax profession will be necessary to maintain the working relationship between advisers and HMRC, according to the new president of the Association of Tax Technicians (ATT).
Stuart McKinnon took over as the ceremonial head of the organisation yesterday, and announced the formation of a working party to investigate the practicalities of ‘some level of regulation or at the very least supervision’ of tax agents.
The move by Mr McKinnon, a partner at accountancy group Baker Tilly, was in response to the Revenue’s plans, outlined in the consultation document Establishing the Future Relationship Between the Tax Agent Community and HMRC, to introduce a system of enrolment for register qualified advisers and give them access to the department’s online admin set-up.
The plans were greeted with qualified acceptance from the ATT, which demanded assurances on a number of issues, including the security of the data in the taxman’s servers.
Speaking to the ATT council, Mr McKinnon stressed the significance of the Revenue’s proposals.
‘No one should be in any doubt about how radically the tax profession will change as a consequence of the HMRC agent strategy… It is a pivotal point in the history of the [sector],’ he said, insisting compulsory regulation could be beneficial.
‘What has come out of HMRC’s research is that the public cannot generally distinguish between someone who is qualified and someone who is not,’ he said.
‘To the man in the street, the title “tax agent” denotes that a person has a certain level of expertise, when in fact anyone can call themselves a tax agent and HMRC will accept them as such. Regulation is often seen as more red tape, but it can and should mean protection. It is how it is handled that is important.’
Mr McKinnon made the case of industry-wide regulation by drawing parallels with the standards to which all ATT members are held, including the requirements to undertake an annual minimum number of hours of training and have adequate professional indemnity insurance where necessary.
‘This is our informal regulation. We are not trying to create red tape for our members. We believe there are minimum standards to be adhered to if members are holding themselves out as agents.
‘It not only protects the general public… but it also protects our members to know they are adhering to best practice,’ said the new president.
‘If the profession as whole wishes to retain the mutual respect required in our dealings with HMRC, then we need to look to some level of regulation or at the very least supervision.’
