Among a number of key policy recommendations for Chancellor Gordon Brown, the ICAEW submission called for a comprehensive review and tax reform programme to help ensure the long term competitiveness of the UK economy.

To help inform this review and rebuild trust, the ICAEW stated that there should be in a significant increase in consultation with business in advance of key policy decisions.

It therefore proposed that the Treasury should establish a high level consultative ‘Tax Forum’ between Government and business to aid this dialogue, with a primary focus on considering corporate tax policy issues, and a secondary focus on addressing VAT issues.

Eric Anstee, Chief Executive of the ICAEW, observed that:

“Trust in the whole tax system is weakening and this trend needs to be reversed. Government appears to admit that it is making too many demands on business for information but it seems powerless to stop. For example, the Government is embarking on another review of the impact of red tape in small business, echoing a similar exercise that it carried out in 1998 yet we have seen no real progress in helping unlock the administrative burden of tax on small business.”

He concluded: “Across the whole tax system, complexity, uncertainty and poor relations with tax payers, are unnecessarily undermining Government tax objectives. We believe that the Chancellor should use the first budgetary cycle of this Parliament to comprehensively address these problems.”