But Bull is not worried about this new rule. He says: "Every reputable tax adviser will already have PII. In making this a requirement for all tax advisers, HMRC is endeavouring to protect taxpayers while driving unscrupulous practitioners out of business."
3) Reforming the tax administration framework
The government has published a call for evidence to begin to explore the opportunities and challenges of more frequent payment of income tax within Income Tax Self-Assessment, and of corporation tax for small companies, based on in-year information.
Alongside this, the Treasury also announced it was publishing a call for evidence on the tax administration framework, covering the core legislation, processes and guidance which underpin obligations for HMRC, taxpayers, agents and third parties.
The call for evidence will explore "how to make tax more straightforward to pay and harder to get wrong, improve people’s experience of the tax system, and build and maintain trust between HMRC and taxpayers".
Steven Cameron, pensions policy director for Aegon, says: "As part of this, it’s important that drives to ‘improve people’s experience of the tax system’ extend to making it easier to claim all tax relief entitlements.
"Within pensions, higher and additional rate taxpayers who are in ‘relief at source’ schemes have to separately reclaim relief above the basic rate, and there’s anecdotal evidence that many forget to do so.
"Even more concerning, there are growing numbers of low paid individuals in ‘net pay’ pension schemes who because they don’t pay income tax, don’t get the 20 per cent tax relief their peers in ‘relief at source’ schemes get by default."
Aegon has therefore urged the Treasury and HMRC to prioritise doing the right thing by those who are missing out on their pension tax relief entitlements.
4) SITR
The social investment tax relief scheme is one of four venture capital schemes and helps a social enterprise raise money by offering investors tax relief on the shares they buy, or the money they lend the enterprise, as long as the enterprise and investors follow the scheme rules for at least three years.
SITR is a state aid designed to help enterprises raise money to support the trading activity of a community interest company or charitable company or trust.
Originally, SITR had a 'sunset clause' of April 2021, and the government conducted a review into the social investment market to assess what sort of reform might work more appropriately to support the policy objectives SITR was introduced to achieve.
However, in a 19-page consultation responses document published this Tax Day, the government said it has "considered all responses to the Call for Evidence carefully" and was confirming its Budget pledge to support the scheme for two more years.
