Tax Compliance Costs

HL Deb 23 February 2004 vol 658 c9WA

Lord Taylor of Warwick

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What estimate they have made of how much tax compliance cost British business in the past financial year. [HL1119]

Lord Davies of Oldham

Reliably estimating the level of tax compliance costs is difficult, in part because it is often not possible to separate these from the costs that would be incurred anyway for financial management purposes.

But the Government are committed to reducing tax compliance costs where this can be done consistently with their other objectives and are reducing such costs through means such as simplificiation and by providing better support or guidance and well targeted exemptions.

Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise both have public service agreement targets to reduce compliance costs. They assess the impact of proposed changes to tax policy and its implementation that could impact on compliance costs. For major measures this is quantified using regulatory impact assessment methodology following Cabinet Office guidelines and the results are published.