Consultation on HMRC powers

New "intervention" powers were enacted earlier this year, aimed at strengthening HMRC's position in enforcing tax compliance.

The legislation included several deterrents but left the matter of safeguards for a Taxpayers' Charter (see section 2 above). This has resulted in insufficient protection for individuals and businesses and we hope that the Chancellor will announce that proper safeguards are to be made statutory.

Linked to the new powers regime, we expect the announcement of a second tax amnesty targeted at people with undisclosed offshore bank accounts. The original amnesty collected £400m and with HMRC having gathered significant information from banks, the Treasury will be expecting even more this time.