9 October 2007

Tax simplification

Building on recent initiatives, most notably at Budget 07, the Government today launches a significant programme of tax simplification to enhance UK productivity and competitiveness. As part of this the Pre-Budget Report announces three reviews, in which Government will work in partnership with business to evaluate how a range of tax policies could be simplified. The Pre-Budget Report also announced immediate progress on tax simplification with a package of tax measures.

Delivering tax simplification (PDF, 69KB)

Further details of these and other announcements on tax simplification are set out in Chapter 4 of the the Pre-Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review document.

For more detailed information about the reviews please see the Tax Simplification Reviews document and a letter from Dave Hartnett and Edward Troup inviting business participation which are available below in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website. For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page.

Media links

The online surveys closed on 30 November 2007 but you can still contribute to the reviews by contacting the review teams using the addresses below.

VAT.simplification@hm-treasury.gsi.gov.uk
VAT Review Team
HM Treasury
1 Horse Guards Road
London
SW1A 2HQ

anti-avoidance.simplification@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk
Anti-Avoidance Review Team
HM Revenue & Customs
100 Parliament Street
London
SW1A 2BQ

relatedcompanies.simplification@hm-treasury.gsi.gov.uk
Related Companies Review Team
HM Treasury
1 Horse Guards Road
London
SW1A 2HQ

The Government will provide an update on the progress of each review at Budget 2008.

Confidentiality disclosure

Information provided in response to this consultation, including personal information, may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes (these are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004).

If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, under the FOIA, there is a statutory Code of Practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals, amongst other things, with obligations of confidence. In view of this it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the Department.

The Department will process your personal data in accordance with the DPA and in the majority of circumstances, this will mean that your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties.