At the core of the government’s response to the Taylor Review of 2017 on working practices in the gig economy is the need to deliver a flexible and productive labour market, but this flexibility will come at a tax cost, says Yvette Nunn, director of Berkeley Associates

HMRC has won the first in a series of appeals concerning the application of employment intermediaries legislation to BBC television presenters, after a First Tier Tribunal (FTT) decided that IR35 applied to the arrangements under which the BBC contracted one of the presenters of a regional news programme, Look North

HMRC has published guidance for taxpayers on how to make sure they take ‘reasonable care’ if they need to send tax returns and other documents to HMRC, and what happens if they do not, including details of penalties

HMRC is ramping up its counter avoidance activity with a mission to target wealthy taxpayers, tough requirement to correct rules and threats of more criminal action against taxpayers, warns Dawn Register, partner in BDO’s tax dispute resolution team

Nimesh Shah, partner at Blick Rothenberg, calls for radical reform of the hugely complex personal tax system, not just inheritance tax, from spikes and cliff edges in marginal tax rates to capital gains tax

HMRC recovered an additional £819m from investigations into payroll taxes last year, up by 16% from the previous year, according analysis by Pinsent Masons, which suggests the gig economy clampdown is a factor in the increase

HMRC has published a warning about the use of contractor loan schemes, following a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about misleading advertising by a tax avoidance scheme promoter, Williams Gordon

Mark Cawthron LLB CTA, specialist tax writer at Croner-i, examines the plans to tax non-resident investors in UK real estate with the extensions of non-resident capital gains tax liability to companies from April 2019

HMRC plans to start piloting Making Tax Digital from April needs to have the serious reach to really test out the limits of the new VAT reporting system to avoid a botched rollout in April 2019, says George Bull, senior tax partner at RSM

The Hanuman Commercial case at the First Tier Tribunal highlights the nuances of VAT liability when novating contracts. Stan Dencher, specialist tax writer at Croner-I, examines the ruling

Inheritance tax may be paid by less than 5% of estates but it is a hugely complex system and now the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, has asked the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) to come up with simplification proposals. Paul Morton, tax director and Daphna Jowell, IHT review team leader at the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) consider key problem areas requiring reform

Gift Aid’s aim of encouraging higher-rate taxpayers to make larger charitable donations delivers just 27p more for every additional £1 spent on the tax incentive, and charities would get substantially higher donations if the value of the relief were given directly to them, according to the National Audit Office (NAO) and University of Birmingham tax centre