The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) is hard at work on two projects: the alignment of income tax and national insurance, and small company taxation.

Former head of the OTS Jeremy Sherwood has said that many taxpayers believe that change is the biggest cause of complexity. ‘Change is inevitable as the business world changes and as politicians want to implement their policies. But we would like them to minimise changes to what is absolutely necessary,’ he told the Australian Tax and Transfer Policy Institute last month.

One of the snags is that these two projects could lead to major changes for millions of individuals.