The ICAS Tax Team
ICAS has an exceptionally strong tax team with diverse skills and experience, well placed to work effectively with ICAS members and the tax authorities.
What does the team do?
Main objectives include the delivery of tax support and representation to members, and policy work and liaison with the tax authorities.
Key components of this include:
- Influencing and improving the technical (as distinct from the party political) content of tax legislation through proactive submissions and responses to consultations.
- Liaison with HMRC on practical issues and problems with HMRC systems.
- Working with other professional bodies on matters of joint interest.
- Suggesting strategic tax changes (for example, through letters to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury).
- Representing ICAS at government and HMRC forums and meetings to ensure that members’ views on tax are heard.
- Presenting ‘Ask ICAS’ webinars about tax developments, consultations or other tax-related matters.
Responses to technical consultations from the Treasury, HMRC, the Office of Tax Simplification and other bodies reflect the views of ICAS committees and individual members. The team reviews draft tax legislation, seeking to ensure that it works effectively and gives input to HMRC on draft legislation and draft guidance, where appropriate. ICAS Tax Staff belong to various HMRC stakeholder groups and hold meetings with appropriate Treasury officials and the tax authorities on policy and operational matters. The team also submits written and oral evidence to Parliamentary inquiries.
Devolution has added a new element to UK tax law and practice in recent years. ICAS is uniquely placed to participate in the new processes and works closely in Edinburgh with the Scottish Parliament’s Finance and Constitution Committee, the Scottish Government and Revenue Scotland.
ICAS represents members of all political persuasions and has a public interest remit to act for the wider public good. It therefore avoids taking any party-political stance but seeks to engage with politicians of all parties where this is likely to facilitate improvements in tax law or in the operation of the tax system.
Susan Cattell, Head of Tax Technical Policy
Susan works closely with the ICAS Tax Board on the direction of ICAS tax policy. She is also secretary to the International and Large Business Taxes Committee, the Private Client Committee and the Indirect Taxes Committee. She represents ICAS on various HMRC stakeholder groups (including the Compliance Reform Forum, the Representative Bodies Steering Group and the Joint VAT Consultative Committee) and at ad hoc meetings to discuss consultations or other specific issues. She is also the ICAS representative on the Charter Stakeholder Group. She writes articles on tax technical issues for the ICAS website and presents ‘Ask ICAS’ webinars.
Philip McNeill, Head of Taxation (Tax Practice and Owner Managed Business Taxes)
Philip is secretary to the Owner Managed Business Tax Committee and within the ICAS tax team has particular responsibility for agent engagement and owner managed business taxes. He works on tax issues that affect small and medium-sized tax practices and their clients. He is involved with HMRC, working to improve the way HMRC digital systems work for agents, and is ICAS lead on MTD ITSA. Digital inclusion is part of the agenda, and the needs of mid-sized and smaller practices and their clients are to the fore. He also presents on ICAS webinars, with a focus on how the tax system works in practice.
Justine Riccomini, Head of Tax (Employment and Devolved taxes)
Justine is based in West Yorkshire and is secretary to the Devolved Taxes Committee and the Employment Taxes Working Group. She leads on matters relating to devolution and employment taxes. She represents ICAS at several HMRC and industry forums (including co-chairing HMRC’s Employment and Payroll Group Forum, Employment Status & Intermediaries Forum and Construction Forum) and sits on the Association of Accounting Technicians’ employment and pensions panel. Justine delivers ‘Ask ICAS’ webinars and also writes technical articles for ICAS and various tax journals. Outside ICAS, Justine is the CIPD’s West Yorkshire Committee Policy Lead and a Board Director at the CIPP.
If you have any queries or would like to contact the ICAS Tax team then please get in touch.