Clause 37 - Minor amendments to Schedule E charge
Finance Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Michael Jack (Fylde, Conservative)
I just rise to welcome in general terms the Government's decision to use clause 37 to advance the process of the tax law rewrite, which is a sensible and welcome development and one that I strongly support. I have one or two points to make later in the schedule, but I shall not make them at this stage. Suffice it to say that the clause is understandably modest and entirely compliant with the terms of the tax law rewrite.
As the Paymaster General knows, the tax law rewrite has accumulated a further list of changes to tax law, and in particular to scheduling, that cannot be tabled in this clause because they are not compliant with the terms of the tax law rewrite. I should be grateful for some assurance that the Government will not lose sight of the wider improvements that the exercise is generating, and at some point in the future will see fit at least to comment on the proposals that have been accumulating in the various minutes of the tax law rewrite exercise to allow us the benefit of their opinion. My final observation is that although the exercise is extraordinarily welcome, before the Bill is out we might wish to take a further look at the whole question of complexity in the tax system.