Reflections on my year as CIOT President

When I became President of CIOT it seemed that the professional bodies were being swept along by HMRC with minimal challenge. It was not a good starting place for beginning the process of restoring trust. That is trust between HMRC and the professions and the citizens of the country. My term as CIOT President has now come to an end and my wish was that by now it may have been possible to start to remove some of the danger to taxpayers businesses and the tax system as a whole inherent in an aggressive tax authority with overbearing powers.

Trust between taxpayers and HMRC continues to be in severe jeopardy. There has been huge reputational loss to a department which is with some justification under regular attack from the media. Parliamentary committees have battered...