ICAS predicts widespread non-compliance
Non-compliance with the new tax regime affecting inheritance tax will prevail because of its complexity and retrospective nature, warns ICAS.
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In response to the taxman’s latest consultation on pre-owned assets, ICAS warned the new tax regime ‘as presently structured presents significant compliance and administration problems both for the taxpayers and the Revenue’.
The accountancy institute joined the growing chorus of tax professionals urging the Revenue to provide detailed and effective guidance on the new tax.
Donald Drysdale, assistant director of tax at ICAS, said: ‘Because of its retrospective nature, it relies on records which in many cases may not exist. It requires taxpayers to analyse details of private transactions undertaken by third parties, and depends upon valuation of property that may be inaccessible to both the taxpayer and the Revenue.
‘Even those with a meticulous approach to tax compliance will find it impossible to keep on the right side of the law.’