The Finance Bill which was published last month is 762 pages long. If this wasn’t bad enough the tendency is that as bills go through Parliament, they grow rather than shrink – so it could well end up as an 800 page plus Finance Act.

This beats the previous record holder for five years (Finance Act 2012) by over 100 pages. All this since the Office of Tax Simplification was formed in 2010!

So, what’s in the Bill? As well as the usual changes to tax rates, allowances etc, the 9 pages of contents tell us that the Bill includes clauses covering Making Tax Digital (of which much, much more over the next few months), off-payroll public sector workers (a.k.a. public sector IR35), deemed domicile, the new “sugar tax” (or “Soft Drinks Industry Levy” to give it its proper name) together with a number of anti-avoidance measures.

I am sure that the people behind the Bill feel that it is all necessary but I sometimes think that those responsible for our tax code should be sent away with a clean sheet of paper and told to start from scratch! Sadly, I don’t make the rules, but we can help you to understand them.

AIMS Accountants for Business – if you like the way we think, you’ll like the way we work.