Government urged to consider implications of business taxes

The government needs to look at the whole range of tax issues facing small businesses in the UK, rather than focus on one area at a time, experts have said.

In its representations to the government about the Budget of 2009, the Chartered Institute of Taxation (Ciot) said that there needed to be more focus on the complete impact of business tax.

It said that it welcomed moves to defer proposed legislation on income shifting and argued that this was just one issue within the complex system of business taxation.

"Any attempt to legislate for income shifting should be limited to a simple set of rules, without creating additional burdens," Ian Menzies-Conacher, the chairman of Ciot's technical committee, said.

Elsewhere, Ciot said that the government should consider the integration of National Insurance Contributions with income tax and a plan to create a statutory residence test.

Recently, the Forum of Private Business said that the increasing tax burden that small companies in the country face was driving many to consider relocating out of the UK.