Tax bodies publish ‘principles of digitalisation’

The Chartered Institute of Taxation and Association of Taxation Technicians have published seven ‘principles of tax digitalisation’ which they recommend should be a benchmark against which digital tax services should be measured.

The two bodies have welcomed the start of a new pilot to test the making tax digital for income tax self-assessment (MTD for ITSA) programme but have concerns regarding the standards used to evaluate digital services.

Alison Kerrey chair of the joint CIOT and ATT digitalisation and agent services committee said: ‘We support moves towards digitalisation of the tax system however there is still real concern about the implementation of this programme whether it will meet its objectives and the risk of it contributing to further degradation of HMRC’s already poor service levels.

‘Before signing up clients to the pilot agents should carefully check they meet the eligibility requirements ...