Just in time for the next round of consultations, CTG has now submitted a response to the discussion paper on “Transforming Business Rates”. As this was a high-level consultation, the key themes we picked up were around the need to maintain charitable reliefs, offer certainty to charities, and seize the opportunity offered through digitalisation to improve the process of applying for charity rates reliefs. You can find our response here.

New consultations have been launched on a range of topics including one aimed at offering more certainty for taxpayers and reducing fraud and error with an advance clearance service for R&D claims. Other consultations focus on reducing the [somewhat stubborn] tax gap including: penalties for failure to disclose tax obligations to HMRC, tackling tax advisers who facilitate non-compliance, and closing down promoters of tax avoidance.