Accountants sceptical over new tax legislation

Date: 24th August 2009

Small business accountants could find new legislation contained in the Finance Act 2009 onerous to adapt to, a new report has suggested.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) pointed out that the laws include a total of 61 Schedules - potentially making taxation rules much more complex than before.

In all, the new piece of legislation is 468 pages long, the fifth-biggest Finance Act of all time.

It also follows the unusually lengthly Act of 2008, which weighed in at 451 pages.

Ian Young, technical manager at the ICAEW Tax Faculty, said: "The taxpayer has been increasingly straining under the weight of legislation."

He added: "The average number of Finance Act pages this decade is still more than three times the average in the 1980s."

The Finance Act 2009 contains a variety of rules affecting money matters in the UK, including an update to anti-forestalling laws.

This related to suppliers claiming that they can offer goods and services at the temporarily reduced rate of VAT (15 per cent), after the rate had gone back up.