Forum to check out HMRC's new powers

In a bid to avoid the problems that haunted the introduction of self-assessment tax filing, the taxman is setting up a board of business and accounting experts to run the rule over its new powers.

In a column in this week’s Accountancy Age, HMRC permanent secretary for tax Dave Hartnett says that a forum will oversee the implementation of the new powers, and that he will chair it.

‘It is vitally important we get this right and learn lessons from the introduction of self-assessment, where we ended up with more complex arrangements than anyone had envisaged,’ he writes.

HMRC’s revamped powers include a new penalty scheme for non-payers and late payers, and greater power to undertake compliance checks at premises, include the right to investigate a business’s record-keeping.