From 1 November 2017, VAT will be charged on roaming services used by UK consumers outside the EU due to the government removing the ‘use and enjoyment’ rule on telecommunication services provided to consumers, as announced in Spring Budget 2017

HMRC has reversed its decision to axe its only office team offering tax services for customers in Welsh, and has announced that the staff are to relocate to Porthmadog

HMRC has won an Upper Tribunal appeal against a tax avoidance scheme which sought to claim £122m was spent on research into brain disorders, when only £7m of it reached a genuine research company

The UK creative sector has benefitted from a 27% increase in tax relief payments from £519m in 2015/16 to £661m in 2016/17, with an added £51m from new theatre and children’s television tax relief bringing this year’s record total to £712m

HMRC’s budget to ensure businesses are paying employees the national minimum wage (NMW) and national living wage (NLW) is to increase by £5.3m in 2017/18 after it grew significantly in April 2016 to £20m, according to government’s Labour Market Enforcement Strategy report

HMRC is struggling to convince individuals, agents and small businesses that it applies penalties and sanctions equally although it has become more approachable and faster at responding to queries in the past year, according to a survey of performance against the key elements of the department’s Your Charter of customer rights

The delivery of HMRC’s flagship Making Tax Digital for business and its office relocation plans have been flagged up as displaying major risks in the latest annual report on the government major projects portfolio (GMPP) from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA)

Taxpayers have expressed dissatisfaction when using HMRC’s Intelligent Telephony Automation (ITA) on customer helplines with the majority attempting to avoid the system to talk directly to an adviser, according to HMRC research

Mencap is warning that the social care sector faces a major financial crisis, after HMRC asked for back payments of up to £400m to cover missing national minimum wage (NMW) for ‘sleep in’ staff, following an employment tribunal ruling

The OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project has released additional guidance on the implementation of country-by-country reporting (CBCR), with the aim of providing further clarification to tax administrations and multinational companies

Robert Verzi, partner and Philip Brudney, international tax manager at Aprio, outline the implications of the profit split method in transfer pricing as part of the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project and highlight issues for multinationals as they examine global transfer pricing policies 

HMRC needs to change its approach to customer complaints and view them as an opportunity to improve service, rather than as a challenge to operation efficiency, according to the latest annual report from the Adjudicator’s Office, which reveals the department paid out some £1.3m in redress last year