A timely tax transformation?

22 February 2017

The world of service delivery has been transformed over the past decade – from ordering your weekly family shop to booking your doctors appointment, from checking your bank balance to learning a new language….just think, is there anything you can’t do online?

In March 2015, the Chancellor proposed to bring this level of connected practicality to one of life’s loathsome little complications – the tax system. In a move which sounds the “death knell” for the annual paper self assessment tax return, the proposal will transform the current system via the development of individual digital tax accounts. The idea is to bring all individual and business tax information into one place, making it easier to register, file, pay and update your tax situation online, at any time.

The development of a single centralised digital tax system will reduce – and eventually remove – tedious form filling so that you won’t have to tell multiple branches of HMRC the information it already knows. The system will function in real-time, showing you full and up-to-date calculations whenever you log in and giving you more time to budget for the payments you need to make.

We also hear that there will be useful support resources such as virtual assistants and web-chat functions, plus you will still be able to nominate a representative, such as ourselves, to act on your behalf to manage your affairs.

It’s a bold transformation within the UK economy, and some major accounting bodies such as the ICAEW have expressed concerns that the timetable may be overly ambitious, the excessive costs of the system will fall on taxpayers, and the quarterly filing conditions and IT system requirements may burden small businesses.

Time will tell if this tax transformation was a shrewd move. For more information, contact the office.