HMRC have provided us with a detailed update on where the Tax Agent Strategy has reached and future plans in this area. Chartered Accountants Ireland, through its long standing involvement in the Joint Tax Agent Strategy Steering Group, continues to work alongside HMRC and the other representative bodies on the strategy and direction of this initiative.

The full update from HMRC is as follows:

“HMRC had intended to publish a consultation this summer to ask for views from agents and the public on the next steps for the Tax Agent Strategy. After careful consideration we have, however, decided that we can make progress and take the next steps without the need for a formal consultation at the present time. We may, however, publish a consultation document about the longer term digital vision in a few months’ time.

Spending Review 2013, which details the Government’s spending plans for 2015–16, allocated more than £200m over the next three years to enable HMRC to become an increasingly digital business – offering customers a range of digital services which are so convenient and easy to use that anyone who can use them will choose to do so.

The first digital exemplar services (including Agent Online Self Serve) are already being developed using the new “agile” methods now in use across Government. This allows us to build and test quickly and move incrementally towards the final system, rather than designing it in full at the outset. The result is a system which allows the needs of the users to be recognised and catered for as the system develops.

We are working with the Government Digital Service (GDS) to build a single Digital Tax Platform that will operate across all HMRC Lines of Business/tax regimes and address the needs of customers and their agents. We are also committed to designing new digital services for customers which are capable of being used by agents on their clients’ behalf provided a valid agent/client relationship can be verified. This important aspect now underpins all of our digital systems development.

The work that we have done so far suggests that a formal public consultation document is neither necessary nor appropriate at this point. We are pleased to report that a number of volunteer agents are testing developments as we build them (see more below).

We re-iterate that HMRC has no plans to regulate the tax agent profession although that would of course ultimately be a decision for Ministers.

What We will Do

We will continue work developing the new agent registration service under which agent firms will apply for a Unique Agent Reference (UAR).

We will shortly begin developing an improved agent authorisation service which will make it easier for agents to let HMRC know when they are engaged by a new client.

We also need to establish and test the process for transition, in particular the simple transfer of clients across to the new system.

We will set up a series of pilots to continue to test Agent and Client Statistics and identify what ‘good looks like’ and how the best agents work.

We will test how agents can help us to manage compliance risk – both before and after tax returns have been submitted.

We will work with GDS and other colleagues to develop our ‘digital’ vision for the future. We want to be able to share this vision with agents in order to have a meaningful conversation about the role of the agent in an increasingly digital world. This may take the form of a consultation at a later date and we will keep agents informed of our plans.

We will continue to work closely with the agent representative bodies (through the Joint Tax Agent Strategy Steering Group, the Agent Engagement Group, the Agent Strategy Group and the Compliance Reform Forum) as this work progresses and we will discuss the pilots and any changes proposed at the various agent/HMRC consultative groups.

‘User Testing’

We’re pleased to say that the first ‘user testing’ session – covering registering to act as an agent under the new system – took place on 20 August. The session was successful and GDS and HMRC received some useful feedback on these very early screens. We’ll continue the build-and-test approach to ensure we design a new system which works well for both agents and HMRC.

We will continue testing developments for agents with agent firms of all sizes so that we can be sure that any new systems and processes will work for all.”