Rushed UK Finance Bill May Produce Bad Tax Law, Experts Warn

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

11 April 2005

As MPs hurried off to join the election campaign trail, all 106 clauses and 11 schedules of the finance bill 2005 were passed by the House of Commons without amendment in a four hour session last week, provoking fear from MPs and tax experts that the 200 pages of tax law has not been adequately scrutinised.

One member who has expressed particular concern at the rushing through of the bill prior to the dissolution of parliament is the Conservative MP Michael Fallon, who told the Commons that the wording and clauses of the bill will be largely “taken on trust.”

Fallon went on to add: "If discussing 11 clauses in 1992 was a constitutional outrage, what is discussing 106 clauses and 203 pages of legislation in four hours?”

“We are setting a bad precedent by passing so much legislation on to the statute book without proper scrutiny. In the end, honourable members and other bodies outside this House will regret what we are doing this afternoon."

While most of the most controversial measures contained in the bill, mainly relating to fresh anti-avoidance provisions, have been omitted from the bill so that MPs can give them their full attention after the general election, the tax industry remains concerned over the content of the remaining legislation

"Although the majority of the anti-avoidance legislation has been left out, it still makes for a hefty bill containing some new and quite complex legislation which could have benefited from more time for parliamentary scrutiny," the ICAEW Tax Faculty stated, according to tax industry news service Accounting Web.

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