Experts claim Parliament is failing taxpayers as tax authorities take over
Parliament is letting taxpayers down by handing over much of the business of making rules to the tax authorities, according to the English ICA tax faculty.
The faculty is sending a report to all MPs which states that political point scoring has displaced serious scrutiny and debate.
Senior technical manager Francesca Lagerberg said: ‘All political parties share the responsibility and all taxpayers suffer for their failure. It is essential that tax law is subjected to detailed and effective parliamentary scrutiny if individual and businesses are to have their interests protected. The hard truth is that democratic control of the tax system is now close to vanishing point.’
The paper sets out four key parliamentary failures. It claims Parliamentary debate has little impact on tax legislation.
‘If a mere seven changes emerge in response to more than 100 hours of debate there is clearly something wrong’ Lagerberg said.
It also says Parliamentary time spent on tax legislation is falling whilst its extent and complexity grows, and claims tax authorities are making their own rules without democratic scrutiny.
The Tax Faculty has recommended restoring democratic scrutiny of tax legislation, splitting the Finance Bill into two, involving the reformed House of Lords in scrutinising tax legislation, creating a committee of MPs with tax expertise to scrutinise the Finance Bill in detail, and restricting secondary tax legislation to small administrative matters.