Simpler tax system for small business

Published:  21 July, 2010

LONDON: The chancellor, George Osborne, is setting up an Office for Tax Simplification to streamline the 11 000-page tax code.

The new body will initially conduct two reviews, streamlining 400 tax reliefs, allowances and exemptions and simplifying the tax system for small businesses, including a simpler alternative to the controversial IR35 code.

The chair of the new body will be former Conservative MP and Treasury Minister Michael Jack and its director will be John Whiting, formerly of PricewaterhouseCoopers who is tax director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation; neither will be paid.

Treasury Minister David Gauke said yesterday that the tax system was overly complex and has made the tax affairs of businesses complicated.

Mr Gauke said: "The Office for Tax Simplification will provide important advice that will help inform us in making the right reforms to the tax system that will help to pave the way to bringing more international business to the UK, which will give our economy the boost it so urgently needs in the years ahead."

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