Accountants from professional bodies warned members of the House of Lords Finance Bill Sub-Committee that plans to impose two-year sentences on promoters who ignore stop notices, are just one of a raft of measures giving HMRC new powers which do not seem to be working, while there are insufficient safeguards in the draft legislation.

Chair of the committee, Lord Leigh of Hurley questioned whether there was support for the crackdown on promoters.

Dr Emma Rawson, technical officer at the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT), said: ‘We fully support efforts to stamp out promoters of tax avoidance schemes, but it needs to be looked at in terms of wider standards.

‘It is almost a wacamole approach without looking at the wider issues. We’re doing little changes without looking at the wider picture.’

Lor