This week's opinion

I imagine some readers rolling their eyes at the title of the latest report from the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) Technology Review: a vision for tax simplicity (tinyurl.com/y8rd5ewu). Surely I hear them say we are having enough problems with Making Tax Digital – the last thing we need is yet more technological change. I can sympathise with that view but the OTS is right to raise some of the broader issues about the role of technology in the tax system.

The key question for me can be found at section 1.31. How important is it for taxpayers to understand why they must pay a particular amount of tax? In future it is relatively easy to imagine HMRC as a black box into which a taxpayer puts their details and it then tells them...