Simpler Tax?

A couple of weeks ago we were uncertain about when the Finance Bill would become a Finance Act. Now we know, the Finance Act 2016 received royal assent on 15 September.

At 649 pages it is second in size only to the 2012 Act which had 687 pages. There have only been six Finance Acts with more than 600 pages, all of them in this century and four of them in the past six years.

I am sure you will agree that is quite enough about Finance Act statistics (and quite enough pages too!) but another fact has caught our eye, the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) was formed in July 2010, six years ago. So two thirds of our 600 page plus Finance Acts have come into being since the OTS was formed.

Now the OTS is not responsible for the content of Finance Acts but it does seem to us that those who are are not listening to them!
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