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Split personality?
Posted: 26 July 2010, 09:38:36
The following news item arrived in Whistleblower's inbox from several months in the future, via a temporal anomaly caused by too many repeats of Doctor Who on digital TV channels.
Tax News: 10 March 2011
The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) today issued its first report, on the simplification of small business taxation.
The OTS tax director John Whiting said that the timetable for producing the report had been tight but he thought they had done a good job.
‘There are obviously problems in balancing the different interests of small business owners, their advisers, and HMRC’, Whiting said, ‘but I believe we have managed to produce a practical and workable roadmap for a significant reduction in the burden of tax compliance for small businesses.’
The reaction from professional bodies was, however, mixed. The Chartered Institute of Taxation had some serious concerns.
‘This report shows a worrying lack of consistency,’ complained CIOT policy director John Whiting.
‘Although it attempts to reduce the burden for business, it seems that HMRC have succeeded in persuading the OTS that it is not possible to do any more than tinker with the legislation, since major change would result in tax loopholes.
'I am saddened that the OTS Tax Director did not feel able to resist this pressure from the Treasury side.’
However, for the OTS, Whiting rejected these accusations.
‘Anyone who believes that I have been influenced unduly by Treasury ministers does not know me very well. If the CIOT’s policy director wants to discuss this with me, he knows where to find me.’
Meanwhile, the Low Income Tax Reform Group complained that the OTS was concentrating on the wrong problem.
They said that small businesses had advisers to help them find their way through the tax system, whereas many pensioners and other people on low incomes were struggling to understand complex tax calculations on their own.
‘The OTS needs to concentrate on the areas which really affect people,’ said LITRG spokesperson John Whiting. ‘That means simplifying the rules for those on lower incomes, including the rules for tax credits.’
Asked to respond to this attack, the OTS tax director became uncharacteristically irritated.
‘Look, everyone thinks this job is easy. If that LITRG spokesperson or the CIOT policy director think they could do it they’re welcome to try.’
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An omission
Mr Whiting has contacted us to complain that Whisteblower failed to mention the fact that 'the First-Tier Tribunal rejected an appeal for a judicial review of the OTS report, with tribunal member John Whiting’s judgment including the comment that "there seemed to be no basis for this challenge" despite it having been brought by the HMRC charter steering group as not in line with the charter’s requirements, the arguments being put forward on behalf of the group by group member John Whiting'.