Such a perfect C-day

THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY has been a popular target of the Inland Revenue and HMRC for more than three decades now and a new version of the construction industry scheme is about to be imposed on the industry. The 2007 scheme ('new CIS') will be 'version 3'; the original (1972) construction industry tax deduction scheme (CIS) having been replaced in August 1999 by the current scheme (CIS2).
HMRC say that 'the new scheme will remove some of the administrative burden of the current scheme and provide alternatives to the paper-based processes of CIS'.
The first construction industry scheme (CIS) was introduced in 1972 to deal with the problem of 'tax avoidance ' including what was known as 'the lump' where migrant workers could come to the UK to work on a self-employed basis and be paid gross. The risk for the UK was that these workers could take the money and...