In that article I refer to the Meade Report and the Mirrlees Review.

I pointed out that the Meade Report in 1978 dealt with direct taxes and laid out a very simple method and some extremely good ways to make the tax system less complicated.

I also pointed out that 30 years later when the Mirrlees Review was dealt with, now dealing with direct and indirect taxes, nothing had been done whatsoever on the Meade proposals.

In my article I asked when is somebody going to do something about it.

Well a few days afterwards I read in the January 2012 issue for PQ Magazine that John Whiting, the tax director of The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), was dealing with Parliament to make the tax system more simple. (Article named is ‘Making Life Simple’ an interview of John Whiting, the tax director of The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) PQ magazine Editor Graham Hambly)

He works one day a week on this, he’s paid £12,000 a year and Parliament has proposed he deal with this job for life.

So here we are, we’ve got two eminent professors who have produced two reports – the Meade Report and Mirrlees Review- and now somebody is looking to make the tax system more simple and they’ve given a gentleman of high standing one day a week to deal with it.

I frankly don’t think that he’s even going to be able to touch the tip of the iceberg in this case.

He does say in the article that he believes you can trace back the beginning of the OTS over the past 10 years to various rumblings and comments.

Well I can remember 30 years ago and the rumblings weren’t only rumblings, they were roars.

In my view nobody has sat down and looked at the problems and one day a week with, I believe a staff of four, as I say is not going to make much difference to the present system – especially as the gentleman appointed to it is the tax policy director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation where he probably spends more time than on the work for the OTS.

However, I do welcome that someone has been appointed to deal with this and so the answer to my query raised in an earlier article of who is dealing with it, then it’s Mr John Whiting of The Office of Tax Simplification.

“The first thing that is absolute nonsense in this
article is that the Lib-Con coalition is going to crackdown on tax avoidance byrecruiting 2,250 more tax inspectors.
Tax inspectors are trained and it takes at least 4
years to train inspectors to the basic requirement needed and there are different grades of tax inspectors. Inspectors dealing with tax investigations should be among the most competent, however the revenue just do not have enough
trained inspectors.

Usually SCI (previously SCO) were grade 6 and grade 7
(previously FT1 & FT2), FT means fully trained, and are considered the elite.Only 10% of all inspectors are ‘fully trained’ so there are just not enough ofthose inspectors in the revenue. Next on the list are C1 and C2 inspectors and it has
been said that they are going to deal with most of the enquiries. Unfortunately as they are less trained and experienced than grade 6 and grade 7 they takelonger to complete tax investigations than the higher grade inspectors. Now forClegg/Cameron to say they are going to employ 2,250 more tax inspectors is justpolitical bullshit.

To suddenly appoint 2,250 new inspectors is absolutely ludicrous as they are not there. Time and time again HMRC say they areappointing another 900 here and 900 there, I am dealing with the revenue each and every day of the week in connection with tax investigations and I can tell you that some of the guys dealing with the investigations shouldn’t be there, quite frankly they know very little about it. On one case recently I said ‘well we’re going on a Code of Practice 9’ and the so called inspector, who I think was a clerk, said ‘what’s that?’ It was astonishing!! The revenue can’t suddenly invent fully trained tax inspectors who will do anything to bring in further taxes from the wealthiest people.You’d think that the wealthiest people are going to employ QC’s, top lawyers and top tax investigators to fight claims. How on earth do you think that a C1 or C2 inspector can cope with that? They can’t. They would have to get going back to the grade 6 and grade 7’s to get further advice.

Are we going to tax the people who earn a million pound or more? Are we going to put on 60, 70, 80 or 90%? They’ve got to be able to encourage the wealthiest people to stay in England and pay their taxes. Don’t forget, wealthy businesses such as Philip Green produce a huge amount of income tax and it may well be that Mr. Green is advised by top accountants and tax advisors on how he can reduce his liabilities to income tax, that is perfectly legal. The way that people are going on about it now you would think that he was one of the great train robbers! The man is only taking advantage of the system as it is for goodness sake. The problem I have is there is a lot of publicity about anti-avoidance and anti-evasion and they are both getting mixed up, so a guy who has got a perfectly straight forward tax avoidance scheme is now marked as a criminal, its absolute nonsense. I am all for everybody paying their fair share and I agree that the tax system as it is, is absolutely appalling.

In 1978 the Mead Report was commissioned by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, it was a great report and it was only on direct taxation. Very, very good recommendations were made but what happened to it, sweet FA, nothing, ignored, nobody picked it up, you know why? Because for someone to actually re-structure the tax system it takes somebody with a lot of balls more than the present people have or the people in 1978 did. So we move on from there. The Institute of Fiscal Studies then produced the Mirrlees Review and that was produced in September 2011, this actually deals with direct and indirect tax and is a wonderful book that can be obtained from the Oxford University Press, as can the Mead Report from Routledge. Both these reports need reading because they come up with good, sensible ideas and a fairer tax system.

So there are things that are happening but nobody is actually acting upon them. The Lib-Dem coalition is not going to do anything, all it is going to do is try to raise further taxes and the more people start screaming about the unfairness the more likely there is of tax rises on the basis of that everybody has got to pay their fair amount of tax, it is absolute nonsense. I find it odd that we’re presenting Obama in the United States as the way to do it. His economy has gone down the tubes as quick as anything. He is thought to be a left-winger, he is thought to be a socialist and quite frankly he has done absolutely nothing for the USA economy so to take him as the example of how we should do it is nonsense. And as for Buffett if he’s that concerned why does he not just write a cheque and send it to the US treasury, very simple. It’s alright to say how unfair it is and that he doesn’t mind paying extra tax. Well Mr. Buffet get your cheque book out, write a cheque and send it to the Treasury, I’m sure they’d be delighted to receive it.”