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Taxation, work and welfare
Tax complexity project
The Office of Tax Simplification has been thinking about ways to measure complexity in the tax system. As we move forward with this work, we will use this page to set out our conclusions.
8 February 2013
Following the publication of the OTS tax complexity index methodology we have had several very thoughtful responses. Professor David Ulph of St. Andrews University has written a paper on tax complexity in which he discusses what complexity is and critiques our measure. Richard Baron of the Institute of Directors has also written a critique of the methodology and David Pett of Pett, Franklin and Co. and a member of our Employee share schemes review Consultative Committee has suggested a tweak to the index weighting.
- Professor David Ulph - Measuring tax complexity (PDF 336KB)
- Richard Baron - The OTS complexity index (PDF 223KB)
- David Pett - Tax complexity (PDF 190KB)
18 December 2012
On Tuesday 18th December the OTS published a paper on the numerical tax thresholds found in UK tax legislation. The paper examines the number, value and age profile of the 639 thresholds. A significant proportion of the thresholds are penalties. The value of thresholds ranges from thousandths of a penny to £20bn.
4 December 2012
On Tuesday 4th December the OTS published a paper setting out the methodology for its complexity ‘index’. The methodology has been developed to indicate which parts of the tax legislation are particularly complex and as a part of our toolkit for helping indentify potential future OTS projects.
On Monday 16 April 2012, the OTS published a short paper on the length of tax legislation. The paper concludes that length of legislation is a factor that contributes to complexity, but the issue is more complex than a simple page count. Although there are 17,795 pages in the Tolley’s Yellow and Orange books for 2011/12, the OTS found that on closer analysis there are “only” 6,102 pages of substantive direct and indirect tax legislation.
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