The Merger Of Customs Excise And The Inland Revenue

The Government has announced its intention to merge the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise departments into a single department, to be called HM Revenue and Customs, in line with the recommendations of the O'Donnell report ('Financing Britain's future: review of the Revenue departments, Cm 6163; ISBN 0101616325) published in March 2004. The Committee's report examines the case for merger; expected costs and benefits; risks; legislation: confidentiality and powers of the new department; tax policy-making; and ministerial accountability. The Committee supports the decision in principle and looks forward to a detailed analysis of expected costs and benefits being carried out as soon as practicable, and also supports the introduction of new accountability arrangements. However, the fact that the Executive Chairman will report to three Treasury Ministers on various aspects of the new department's work appears unnecessarily cumbersome, and recommends that this should be reviewed in light of practice once the new department has been created.

These are the papers from the ninth Cambridge Tax Law History Conference, held in July 2018. In the usual manner, these papers have been selected from an oversupply of proposals for their interest and relevance, and scrutinised and edited to the highest standard for inclusion in this prestigious series. The papers fall within five basic themes. Four papers focus on tax theory: Bentham; social contract and tax governance; Schumpeter's 'thunder of history'; and the resurgence of the benefits theory. Three involve the history of UK specific interpretational issues: management expenses; anti-avoidance jurisprudence; and identification of professionals. A further three concern specific forms of UK tax on road travel, land and capital gains. One paper considers the formation of HMRC and another explains aspects of nineteenth-century taxation by reference to Jane Austen characters. Four consider aspects of international taxation: development of EU corporate tax policy; history of Dutch tax planning; the important 1942 Canada–US tax treaty; and the 1928 UN model tax treaties on tax evasion. Also included are papers on the effects of WWI on New Zealand income tax and development of anti-tax avoidance rules in China.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee publishes its 61st Report of the Session which, on the basis of evidence from the Cabinet Office and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), examined tax disputes. At 31 March 2011 HM Revenue & Customs was seeking to resolve tax issues valued at over £25 billion with large companies, some of which included disputes over outstanding tax. In this report, the Committee expresses concern about how the Department handled some cases involving large settlements and that there needs to be proper separation between the negotiation of tax settlements and the authorization of such settlements. The Committee also states that HMRC made matters worse by trying to avoid scrutiny of these settlements, keeping confidential the details of specific settlements with large companies. This effects Parliament's ability to establish value for money, compounded further by imprecise, inconsistent and potentially misleading answers given by senior departmental officials, including the Permanent Secretary for Tax in particular over his evidence on his relationship with Goldman Sachs, in facilitating a settlement with the company over their tax dispute. HMRC governance processes in these matters were inconsistent and it has now appointed two new Commissioners with tax expertise, and plans to introduce a new assessor role to permit independent review of large settlements before they are finalised. The Committee further states that it saw little evidence of personal accountability within the Department, and that a perception has developed that large companies are treated more favourably, receiving preferential treatment compared to small businesses and individuals.

The fallout from the financial crisis of 2007-8, HSBC Suisse in 2015, and the Panama Papers in 2016 has generated calls for far more vigorous and punitive responses to tax evasion and greater international co-operation against mechanisms for giving anonymity to the ownership of property. One mechanism to ensure compliance is the use of the criminal justice system. The announcement in 2013 by the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, of a policy of increasing rates of prosecution for tax evasion raised squarely the issue of whether increased involvement of criminal law and criminal justice in tax evasion would be justifiable or not. The relationship between tax evasion and the proceeds of crime is taking on increasing importance: treating the 'proceeds of criminal tax evasion' as falling within the 'proceeds of crime' regime inevitably expands the scope of both. In this book, Peter Alldridge considers the development of the offences and the relationship between tax evasion offences and other criminal offences; the relevant rules of evidence; prosecution structures, decision-making processes, and alternatives to prosecution. Specific topics include offshore evasion and the relationship of tax evasion with other crimes and aspects of the criminal justice system. A topical and lively discussion of a heated debate.

There is now almost universal acceptance that tax law is overly complex and indeterminate; and yet, there has to date been no comprehensive assessment of the role of the tax authority in the current arrangement. If the legislation and case law offer few immediate answers to the taxpayer, then the role of Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in advising taxpayers becomes more apparent. This monograph contends that the provision of advice by HMRC is desirable by virtue of the rule of law and it follows that any such advice should be correct, clear, accessible and reliable. Additionally, there should exist some means of scrutinising the advice in order to check that it satisfies these criteria. Tax Authority Advice and the Public explores this view of HMRC's role in tax collection. It explains the deficiencies in the current system in this light, highlighting the pitfalls for taxpayers and practitioners as well as the potential remedies. Finally, the book assesses potential reforms which could be adopted in order to alleviate existing problems. A timely and ambitious work, this book is essential reading for practitioners and academics interested in the interaction between tax administration and public law.

Leach’s Tax Dictionary contains over 1,000 pages of definitions. It has three sections: the first lists definitions; the second is a list of abbreviations found in official publications, including government press releases where new abbreviations are made up almost every week; and the third gives a list of tax rates and other information which may be of use to a tax accountant/lawyer.

The UK is said to have been one of the most prolific reformers of its public administration. Successive reforms have been accompanied by claims that the changes would make the world a better place by transforming the way government worked. Despite much discussion and debate over government makeovers and reforms, however, there has been remarkably little systematic evaluation of what happened to cost and performance in UK government during the last thirty years. A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less? aims to address that gap, offering a unique evaluation of UK government modernization programmes from 1980 to the present day. The book provides a distinctive framework for evaluating long-term performance in government, bringing together the working better and costing less dimensions, and presents detailed primary evidence within that framework.This book explores the implications of their findings for widely held ideas about public management, the questions they present, and their policy implications for a period in which pressures to make government work better and cost less are unlikely to go away.

Organised crime in Northern Ireland : Third report of session 2005-06, Vol. 2: Oral and written Evidence