Clause 23 - Payments
Tax Credits Bill
12:30 pm
Ms Dawn Primarolo (Paymaster General, HM Treasury; Bristol South, Labour)
The Carter report is not within the remit of this Committee, but if the hon. Gentleman examines its main thrust, he will see that in electronic transactions, the use of e-commerce was of huge benefit, not only in terms of communication between small and large businesses and the Revenue, but in terms of conducting business. It is necessary to take business forward, and Carter proposed that the Government should consider compulsion in respect of electronic communication with the Revenue, as well as ways to incentivise small employers to do that, perhaps initially by using of an intermediary.
In the pre-Budget report, the Government said that all the recommendations should be out in the open. We saw the strength of the report's argument because it was about productivity. We asked people to comment on the issues by the end of this month. The proposed measure is much wider, encompassing productivity and interaction with the tax system as whole, but it could be of huge benefit. If accepted, it would require Government action.