Select committee: Finance Bill Sub-Committee
Conclusion 48
4th Report - New powers for HMRC: fair and proportionate?
Published 19 Dec 2020
Paragraph 215
Finance Bill Sub-Committee Draft Finance Bill 2021 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Good tax policy needs to be evidence-based and not just with a theoretical justification or rationale but with analysis, facts and figures. We are concerned that in some cases policy and legislative proposals are being advanced without providing the evidence to back them up or with a flawed analysis that takes account of only part of the available evidence leading to the wrong solution. This should not happen even in consultation, let alone in legislative measures being brought before Parliament.
From: Finance Bill Sub-Committee, 4th Report - New powers for HMRC: fair and proportionate?, paragraph 215, 19 December 2020
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 19 February 2021 (deadline 19 February 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government states that it "has accepted nine recommendations and partially accepted six" of the Sub-Committee's report on new HMRC powers, and declines the others.
- On promoters of tax avoidance schemes, it accepts that DAC6 should no longer be a POTAS trigger, and says it "will consult this spring on a further package of measures" so that promoters face stronger sanctions more quickly.
- It does not accept the recommendations to keep tribunal approval for financial institution information requests, or to give a right of appeal, stating that the UK "will be unable to meet the international standard" if tribunal approval remains.
- On unregulated tax advisers it partially accepts the recommendation, stating that, "as a first step", it is "exploring making professional indemnity insurance a compulsory requirement" and will consult on the design of this proposal.
- On notifying uncertain tax treatment it does not accept a new Stage 1 consultation, but "will launch a further Stage 2 consultation" before publishing draft legislation for technical consultation.