I note that the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland has been yelling like mad about there being less than 90 days consultation period on the new capital gains tax rules.
Funny how I haven't heard the same clamour about the consultation that the Financial Reporting Council announced on 31 January when they said:
The POB published drafts of three sets of regulations on 31 January 2008 inviting comments by 21 March 2008. The final version of these regulations will take effect from 6 April 2008.
Draft Statutory Auditors (Transparency) Instrument 2008
Draft Statutory Auditors (Registration) Instrument 2008
Draft Statutory Auditors (Examinations ) Instrument 2008
All pretty fundamental stuff for audit firms, and the reality is that they will have almost no time to put the requirements of these regulations into effect before 6 April 2008. And yet this, apparently is OK.
So too are the CGT changes: it's just that the professional institues see it as their job to undermine the tax system. How did we get to this sorry position?
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“the professional institutes see it as their job to undermine the tax system. ”
Come on Richard. That’s a dreadful slur on the efforts of dozens, if not hundreds of volunteers who sit on the professional bodies’ technical committees. I’ve sat on various ICAEW Tax committees and have every reason to believe that those of the other main bodies operate in a similar fashion.
The committees formulate representations to Gov’t, Treasury and HMRC and respond to consultations. You (and indeed I) may not agree with all the points made but I dispute the suggestion that everyone’s objectives are to undermine the tax system. On the contrary we are all trying to help fix it.
Mark
Then those accountants should make sure the PR departments of the institues they serve relfect their own responsible work. Right now they don’t, and on the basis of their public comments these Institutes do deserve to be criticised: they have a one way communication strategy that is indicative of systematic and deeply ingrained bias against the tax system.
I stand my ground!
Richard
Can you help me out here please Richard? We must be at cross purposes. What communications and strategies are you referring to exactly in support of your contention that “the professional institutes see it as their job to undermine the tax system.”?
I guess you’ve seen certain press releases with which I am unfamiliar.
By the way I should have added that in addition to the committee volunteers (drawn largely from members in practices outside the top ten) I have yet to meet any ICAEW staff who see it as their job to undermine the tax system. They have to perform a difficult balancing act in their efforts to support the committees, Institute members generally and endeavour to retain influence with Gov’t, Treasury and HMRC. Again the last thing they would do is attempt “to undermine the tax system”.
ps: Rest assured that if I was aware of communications from ICAEW that I thought were indicative of an attempt by my Institute to undermine the tax system I certainly would speak up and am aware of many other practitioners who would do so too.
Mark
I know you ahve given much time to the ICAEW. Maybe you have knowledge I don’t.
I stand back and read the tax output of the institutes. And when I do I see (with very,very rare exceptions) both a wholly negative approach to taxation itslef (it is generally suggested that any attempt to tax is a negative for the economy, for example) and a wholly negative approach to HMRC.
In addition, I find remarkably little that is constructive in what it puts out. I simply draw attention to this http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2007/08/31/poverty-of-thinking-at-the-icaew/
My comments refer to the poverty of thinking that I believe that exists in our professional institutes on tax because there is only one mind set apparently allowed, which is that tax is a bad thing. I call that an undermining of the tax system at its most basic level.
Richard
Mark
I continue to muse on tbis. Let me give you another example why I do think the Institutes are negative to the tax system.
We all know there is a problem with income shifting. We knew that if the Revenue lost Arctic Systems legislation was pretty much inevitable.
But where was the debate within the Institutes on how to tackle this problem? Was it encouraged? If it was, I admit I did not see it. Nor have I seen constructive engagement with the domicile debate, for example. The ACCA’s commissioning of my own work on flat tax might have been an excpetion.
But I am not seeing thought leadership on tax that is striving to make a modern tax system. I see reaction almost continually, and that reaction seems to consist almost wholly of a defence of what there has been, so long as it provided opprtunity for tax saving.
I make my point, this is undermining of the tax system. I also think it fails to meet the duty that falls on Institutes of ther status of those to which we belong.
And I stress: I know of exceptions to these points. I am talking generalities, and I believe that generality s correct.
Richard
Thanks for that Richard.
I questioned your assertion that “the professional institutes see it as their job to undermine the tax system.”
I’m unclear how any of your subsequent observations and comments support that specific contention which is what prompted my interjection.
I think we’ll just have to agree to differ on this one Richard.
Mark
Mark
OK, so you think my language too strong.
But wouldn’t you like to see a profession that used it’s ingenuity to create a tax system that met the government’s needs, enhanced democratic accountability and was just (which does, for example, require redistribution to be a core element)?
And if you do share something like that aspiration, why is it that we never see such initiatives? We only ever see issues promoted that advance the interest of what the professions see as their core client interest?
Is that really what a professional body should be doing? And if they are really promoting that interest most of the time, aren’t they using their resoirce to undermine the tax system that we actually need?
I offer it as a basis for discussion.
Richard
Mark
I’ve thought further about this. Most comments I let pass me by – yours I take seriously. They even got discussed over supper in my house last night.
Put it like this. You’re a coach: a good one I think. If you wanted to encourage someone would you spend all your time telling them they were getting all they did wrong, or doing a job that was not worthwhile, or were causing harm, and do all that without offering constructive, proactive comment as to how to develop? I don’t think so. You’d know that if you did you were undermining that person.
That’s what the Institutes seem to do though. That’s what I mean by their attitude undermining the tax system. I do not think that such persistent behaviour is chance: I think it deliberate. I want it to change.
That does not mean they should not be critical of HMRC, I am too. But I want to see a proactively positive attitude to that criticism.
I think that is fair comment. Your thought?
Richard