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Dare to be boring, accountancy body tells Chancellor

This Chancellor, perhaps more than any other in living memory, is keen on a rabbit out of the hat moment when he delivers his annual budget. ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is urging the Chancellor to break from his usual delivery and keep the steady pace of recovery going.

Chas Roy-Chowdhury, ACCA head of taxation, said: “Mr Osborne is six years into his tenure as Chancellor; he’s set in motion many mechanisms to improve the UK economy for both individuals and businesses. He should not risk that progress by chasing headlines in Thursday’s papers.

“We already have a review of business taxes and business rates underway, as well as a review of the entire tax system by the OTS (Office of Tax Simplification). In past budgets he’s circumnavigated their work by announcing surprise changes before the OTS has had chance to complete their review and report back.

“During his time at No.11 Downing Street he’s made many pledges to make the tax system simpler, now he has the chance to make good on those promises. Let the reviews happen and take time to study the recommendations.”

ACCA is particularly pleased that Mr Osborne has headed the previous pleas of ACCA, his back benchers and many other business organisations, and decided against another ‘once in a lifetime’ chance to the pensions system.

Chas continued: “ACCA had urged the Chancellor numerous times over the past five years to stop the continual changes to the pensions system in search of tax revenue. Pensions are about long term planning, and you can’t make long terms plans if the system is constantly being changed.

“If he wants to make one change ACCA would like to see him begin to redress the fiscal drag created by raising of the personal allowance. Too many middle income earners have been drawn into 40% income tax. He should now start to raise the 40% threshold to ease the burden on this group.

“It goes against his preferred way of operating at budget time, but with a fragile UK recovery, and a volatile global economy ACCA hopes the Chancellor is brave enough to be boring this month.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by ACCA .