Anti-merger body now out to get Carter

Campaigners who helped scupper the ICAEW’s merger with CIPFA are to
reactivate their lobby group in a new struggle against the changes to tax filing
deadlines.

Bruce Lawson, one of the key critics of the institute merger, told
Accountancy Age he intended to conduct a poll of the 19,200 supporters
of Members Against Consolidation (MAC), with a view to reactivating the body’s
lists to frustrate the Carter report’s recommendations.

Lord Carter suggested, and HM Revenue & Customs fully accepted, a move to
file paper returns by the end of September, with online returns due by the end
of November. The changes will take place from 2008.

‘We will reactivate MAC. Things can be changed if people are determined,’
Lawson said.

The move in part reflected a feeling that institute representations to
government had proved ineffective in the past, and that small practitioners
needed to take matters into their own hands to effect change, Lawson said.

If the move goes ahead, Lawson said he ‘would file every single tax return as
an estimate’ and correct them on the 31 January.