Former president of CIOT John Whiting has been given the tax body's Council Award, marking only the fourth time the institute has recognised a tax expert in this way.

Whiting, who is tax director of the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), was being honoured 'in recognition of his long service to the institute and for his contribution to explaining the tax system to the public,' according to CIOT's citation.

In addition to running the OTS, Whiting is a non-executive director on the board of HMRC. From 2009 until 2013 he was the CIOT's first tax policy director, having been a tax partner at PwC for 25 years.

CIOT president Stephen Coleclough paid tribute to Whiting's 'ongoing efforts to unravel the spaghetti bowl of UK taxes', saying 'his breadth of understanding of the whole UK tax system and his ability to explain it in plain English is unrivalled' and had put him at the forefront of the campaign for tax simplification.

'I am absolutely delighted to be able to recognise John Whiting's huge contribution to the CIOT, to the wider tax profession, to the tax policy process and to communicating the tax system to the public. At a time when the tax profession has taken a lot of criticism - much of it unwarranted - from politicians and commentators John is the kind of person who gives tax advisers a good name, and whose career shows the difference a determined and gifted practitioner can make,' Coleclough said.

Exchequer secretary David Gauke welcomed news of the award, saying it was 'richly deserved' as Whiting has 'consistently been an informed and respected voice in the national debate on taxation'.

The three previous recipients of the CIOT Council Award are all former CIOT presidents. They are Ian Luder, who also served as Lord Mayor of London; John Avery Jones, who has sat as a tax tribunal judge for more than 20 years; and John Andrews, who set up CIOT's Low Incomes Tax Reform Group.