Chartered Accountants Ireland has already written to HMRC in connection with their plans to create powers of investigation and penalties against tax agents. A meeting took place in London last month between professional representative associations including Chartered Accountants Ireland and HMRC to thrash out the issues.

The meeting took the format of a workshop with a select number of ‘industry’ representatives present; HMRC's aim in holding the workshop was to assist in the process of “further developing our legislative model for dealing with the very small number of dishonest tax agents.”

Of major concern to many of the attendees are many of the current draft definitions which are very widely drawn (along with other procedural matters in relation to the power to access documents and charge penalties) but it was very interesting to note that so many of the contributors to the meeting, including Chartered Accountants Ireland, have yet to be convinced of the need for this legislation.

One thing though is very clear – there will be some measure of tax legislation in this area in the near future, possibly in time for Finance Bill 2011.

The Chartered Accountants Ireland written submission was published in the June issue of tax.point.