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The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) warned that a Government proposal to simplify tax and accounting for small businesses is complex, strewn with pitfalls and doomed to fail.
This follows another recent attack on the proposal by the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) which described it as as good idea gone bad.
Andrew Gotch, Chairman of the CIOT’s Owner Managed Business technical sub-committee, said: “This was a real opportunity to simplify the tax system for the smallest businesses, but the Government is blowing it. These proposals are the opposite of simple. We urge the Government to reconsider the proposals and make changes, to make them more simple and workable.”
The CIOT’s comments come in response to draft legislation on ‘Simpler Income Tax for the Smallest Businesses’, including cash accounting, published for consultation ahead of its inclusion in Finance Bill 2013 this spring.
Cash accounting
The CIOT backed the introduction of cash accounting for the smallest businesses as originally suggested by the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) in February 2012.
However, the CIOT says that HMRC has coupled the proposed cash basis with a number of unpalatable conditions, such as the withdrawal of the ability to claim certain business expenses and reliefs, making the package complex and unattractive. This seems to be linked to the much-increased (compared with the OTS recommendation) size limit for the scheme, which has led to HMRC concerns about tax leakage.
Andrew Gotch said: "The Government’s sensible objective of making tax easier for the smallest businesses will not be met by the proposals set out in the draft legislation. It is complex and full of compliance pitfalls and undermines what should be a simple system.
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“Small start-ups are particularly likely to make initial losses. So we believe HMRC is under a duty to publicise the fact that such businesses will be depriving themselves of cash flow from losses in earlier years if they opt for the cash basis. These restrictions, coupled with the sheer complexity of the proposed system and consequent risk of inadvertent non-compliance, mean that competent advisers will unfortunately find it difficult to recommend the cash basis to many small businesses.
“The proposals will effectively require advisers and provoke taxpayers to prepare accounts on both an accruals and a cash basis every year in order to decide which is ‘best’ from a tax perspective. Thus the legislation builds in exactly the kind of tax-driven avoidance that HMRC and Government should be actively discouraging. It is also precisely the opposite of the OTS’s aim: to have a simple system that is the obvious way to go for the smallest businesses and which can be managed without extensive professional advice. HMRC’s proposal is bad policy and bad law.”
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Susie Hughes © Shout99 2013
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