08 November 2017 
Amanda Darley, Head of Operations and Engagement
While the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) report on VAT: Routes to Simplification was being laid before Parliament and then published yesterday, I (along with a number of university tax and VAT managers) was listening to the OTS discuss it at the Orca Law VAT & Property conference. Both Ruth Corkin, who gathered feedback direct from universities at our tax conference, and Paul Morton, the OTS Tax Director, were at the conference to provide some insight into the report. The OTS feels that while both technical and administrative simplifications are required, administrative simplifications will be quicker and easier to achieve, certainly in the short term.
Although the report, and certainly pre-publication commentary on it, is largely focused on what the VAT registration threshold should be, a number of the concerns raised by BUFDG and university tax staff have also been addressed, including recommendations that HMRC should:
The OTS report runs to 79 pages, including a 13 page Foreword and Executive Summary, but we have extracted the table of all 23 recommendations here if you don't have time to read it all at the moment.
