Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of automatically passporting Solicitors Regulation Authority-regulated firms onto the proposed register for tax advisers as part of the implementation of Making Tax Digital.

The government is cracking down on bad tax advisers and is creating a fairer tax advice system to help businesses and individuals access reliable tax advice.

As part of that, tax adviser registration establishes a baseline standard for all tax advisers who interact with HMRC, and ensures that HMRC knows that firms who interact with them on behalf of taxpayers meet this standard.

Under a passporting approach, firms would still need to provide HMRC with core information about their business and relevant individuals so that HMRC knows who is interacting with it and can manage access appropriately. HMRC would in any case need to undertake its own checks using HMRC systems, which are designed to make this process straightforward and minimise additional burden.

A new, streamlined tax adviser registration service was a top ask from HMRC’s stakeholders, and the government has invested £36m to make the registration process quick and easy to complete. HMRC will automatically perform checks in the background, and those with an existing agent services account (ASA) do not need to register again.