This week's opinion

In a week when the Supreme Court has confirmed that it is for parliament alone to make and change the law I found it ironic that in its latest publication the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee seemed to be pushing some of the responsibility for tax law to HMRC. Take footballers’ image rights. The issue of whether payments for image rights were income from employment was settled in a Special Commissioners case in 2000 (Sports Club and other SpC 253). But in the evidence session to the committee after being told how image rights were taxed an MP asked the chief executive of HMRC: ‘Do you accept that most of the people in this country listening to that answer about the convoluted nature of image rights will think it is not just offside but downright crooked and it is incredible that the law has...