- Home
- Budget
- Newsroom & speeches
- Economic data
- Consultations & legislation
- Independent reviews
- Financial services
- Infrastructure
- International issues
- Public spending & reporting
- Taxation, work and welfare
-
- Corporate tax
- Indirect tax
- Tax and the environment
- Office of Tax Simplification
- Tax policy making
- Public Sector Pay
- Public Service Pensions (PSP)
- Controlled Foreign Companies (CFCs)
- Taxation of Foreign Branches: documents published prior to 29 November 2010
- Patent Box
- Tax avoidance
- Income tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs)
- UK economy
- About us
Taxation, work and welfare
Tax Reliefs Review
03 March 2011
The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) has carried out a review into all tax reliefs, allowances and exemptions, for businesses and individuals, across all the taxes administered by HM Revenue & Customs. The Chancellor asked the OTS to identify reliefs that should be simplified or repealed to help achieve a simpler tax system.
Final report
The OTS published the final report of the review of tax reliefs on Thursday 3 March 2011. The report recommended that 45 reliefs should be abolished; 17 reliefs should be simplified and 54 reliefs should be retained. They also found that there are 8 expired reliefs which should be removed from legislation. The recommendations have been submitted to the Chancellor ahead of Budget 2011.
- Review of tax reliefs: final report (PDF 1MB)
- Press release: Recommendations to simplify UK’s “spaghetti bowl” of tax reliefs put to Chancellor
- Review of Reliefs: Background and Approach
- Terms of reference
- Review of Tax Reliefs Consultative Committee
Interim report
The OTS published an interim report of the review of tax reliefs on Monday 13 December 2010. The report acts as a test to gauge reaction to the OTS methodology for the rest of the review. We have provisionally looked at 13 reliefs for the report and provided a recommendation as the future of each relief based on the review criteria in place. The recommendations therefore suggest to potentially retain, simplify or abolish the reliefs.
The OTS are keen that this interim report continues to generate debate and feedback on all tax reliefs under the review, and are seeking views on the methodology behind the review. This will be seen as a 'taster' ahead of the full report due before Budget 2011.
List of all tax reliefs
As the first step of the review process, on 08 November 2010 the OTS published a complete list of tax reliefs and the approach that will be used for the Review. The list is the first time all tax reliefs administered by HM Revenue and Customs have been compiled and made available in a single document.
Share
