Finance Bill Sub-Committee to take evidence from experts on data and R&D taxation

At 4.15pm the sub-committee will hear evidence from:

• Colin Hailey, Chair of the Finance and Tax Committee, UK Bioindustry Association (BIA)
• Dr Roger Barker, Director of Policy and Corporate Governance, Institute of Directors (IoD)
• Michael Moore, Chief Executive, British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA)
• Gillian Thomson, Group Tax Manager, Skanska.

At 5:15pm the sub-committee will hear evidence from:

• Dr Andy Summers, Associate Professor of Law, London School of Economics (LSE)
• Bill Dodwell, Member, Administrative Burdens Advisory Board (ABAB) and former Tax Director, Office of Tax Simplification (OTS)
• Kevin Hart, Chief Executive Officer, Business Application Software Developers Association (BASDA)
• Samantha O’Sullivan, Policy Lead, Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP)
• Joshua Toovey, Senior Research and Policy Officer, Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE).

The meeting will be held in Committee Room 2 of the House of Lords. It will also be streamed live on Parliament TV.

Topics likely to be covered in these sessions include:

• Simplification of research and development relief.
• How the merged scheme will deal with subcontracting.
• Government engagement with business during the consultation process.
• HMRC’s aims in collecting information about employees’ hours.
• Impact of these changes on employers who outsource their payroll.
• Proposals to tackle promoters of tax avoidance schemes.

About this inquiry

The sub-committee’s inquiry is focussing on four areas within the draft Finance Bill 2023-24:

• The measures dealing with the promoters of tax avoidance and increasing the maximum prison term for tax fraud, are two separate measures which aim to crack down on tax fraud by dealing with the most persistent and determined promoters of tax avoidance and discouraging egregious tax practices.
• The reforms which merge the two existing Research and Development (R&D) schemes as well as providing tax relief for R&D intensive SMEs, propose a single R&D relief and a higher rate of payable tax credit for loss-making R&D intensive SMEs. The measure aims to simplify the tax system and provide further support to R&D intensive SMEs.
• The measure which requires certain taxpayers to provide additional data to HMRC aims to improve the quality of data collected by HMRC to provide better outcomes for taxpayers and businesses, as well as improving compliance.