The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants says the sheer volume and intricacies of the 2007/08 Finance Bill, published last Thursday, adds to tax complexity.

Chas Roy-Chowdhury, ACCA head of taxation, said the Treasury’s explanatory notes for the finance bill alone ran into 1,148 pages, but the actual Bill was 113 sections long and about 440 pages in total, according to Tax-News.com.

‘Every year, the bill becomes more complex and the volume of tax policy increase,’ he said. ‘The devil is truly in the detail when it comes to trawling through this bill and the fundamental elements of a good tax system - fairness and clarity - are often too hard to track down simply because of the bill’s bulk.’

Roy-Chowdhury stressed simplification was ‘desperately needed’ and an independent tax policy committee, modelled on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, would help to remove complexity. ‘Such a body would make for an efficient UK tax system – one which is stable, certain, simple and fair,' he said.

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