This week's opinion

HMRC’s simple assessment proposals covered in last week’s news (Taxation 5 October 2017) seem to have divided the profession. Some commentators have hailed them as a welcome simplification while others have forecast high error rates and chaos. Where does the truth lie? The answer is that we do not know. For a long time many of us have been asking HMRC to use the information it already holds to pre-populate returns so simple assessment seems to be a welcome step in this direction. Similarly taking people of out self assessment if there is no need for them to complete a return must be a good idea. So what is the problem? First is mistrust of HMRC’s ability to link information to the correct individuals. We have all experienced the nightmare of having to convince HMRC that a client does not have an undisclosed bank account...