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Finance Bill

On the contrary. Of course people have to pay the taxes that are due. However, we now have the combination of thousands of pages of extremely complicated tax law and a fear that those who interpret the law—the tax inspectors—can change their minds. For example, a company could have honestly settled its tax affairs for a particular year with a tax interpretation that has been signed off by not only their tax advisers and accountants but by the Revenue—and then the Revenue can come along and say, ““Actually, we’ve changed our mind. We don’t think that that clause meant this; it meant something else.? I am not talking about companies that are trying to get away with something. Companies want certainty about how much tax they should pay in a given year. They take advice from tax lawyers and accountants and put a proposition to the Revenue. If the Revenue accepts the proposition, that should be the end of the matter. It should not be possible for the Revenue to reopen the case later and say that it has changed its mind. If the Revenue were to think that a company’s original filing misunderstood the tax law, it would be its duty to say, ““We think you’ve misunderstood this point. This is how we interpret it; will you ensure that your filing is in line with that?? The process is iterative and requires discussion, because these matters are not as pure and simple as the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) implies. Incredibly difficult judgments must be made, because of the thousands of pages of opaque material that the House passes as successive Finance Acts; we are discussing several hundred rather difficult pages today. It is not easy for law-abiding, decent citizens to know exactly what the legislation means, so they expect a bit of understanding from the Revenue.