The Treasury has released guidance on the government’s commitment to publish a summary of the key points from an accounting officer assessment from April 2017, while providing advice on how accounting officers should assess a policy/project against four standards, including details on when to publish a summary

HMRC collected £1.3bn in disputed tax in 2016/17 through its use of accelerated payment notices (APNs), a 21% increase on the previous year when it received £1.07bn, according to Moore Stephens

Julie Butler FCA considers whether the inclusion of an error in the accounts changes legal ownership highlighting the issues raised in the long-running and contentious Ham v Bell & Ors [2016] EWHC 1791(Ch), settled at the High Court last year

The EU is closer to reaching agreement on draft rules for a pan-European digital tax basis for major multinational IT giants such as Amazon and Google, with proposals based on permanent establishment status due to be released in spring 2018

HMRC’s new anti-money laundering service, the Supervised Business Register, provides taxpayers with longer reference numbers which are not currently compatible with its search tool, meaning taxpayers must use the company name to verify if the business is registered under Money Laundering Regulations

The first automatic Common Reporting Standard (CRS) exchanges between 49 jurisdictions will take place this month, to allow the annual exchange of information on offshore accounts to tackle tax evasion, with a further 53 jurisdictions taking up exchanges in September 2018

Menzies tax manager Natasha Spicer and tax director Lucy Mangan consider the impact of changes to the tax regime for corporate losses with the introduction of rules to curb corporate use of interest deductibility

HMRC has published a six-week technical consultation on secondary legislation relating to the Help to Save scheme aimed at working families on low incomes, which is set to launch in April 2018

HMRC’s executive chair and first permanent secretary, Edward Troup, has announced plans to retire after working for the tax authority for five years, officially departing on 31 December 2017

HMRC has updated its guidance on the worldwide disclosure facility (WDF) used to disclose a UK tax liability that relates wholly or in part to an offshore issue to allow an additional 90 days to make a disclosure

HMRC chiefs have warned MPs that the department will need thousands more staff to handle customs and tax requirements once new trade arrangements are established post-Brexit, and are examining a ‘Singapore-style’ option

A year-long recruitment process has resulted in HMRC appointing Jacky Wright, Microsoft’s corporate vice president, as chief digital and information officer to oversee the tax authority’s digital transformation, taking over from interim Mike Potter