Finance secretary John Swinney told MSPs that a new tax-collecting agency in the planning stages especially for the administration of the new taxes, which go into effect from April of 2015.  Mr Swinney added that the stamp duty system is to be scrapped in order for it to be replaced by a new tax covering transactions of land and buildings instead; early analysis of one version of the plan could see anyone spending under that £325,000 on a new house would be subject to less taxation overall, but the possibility also exists that properties that cost anywhere from £208,000 to £250,000 could experience higher taxation rates on being purchased.

Mr Swinney insists that the lion’s share of homeowners would benefit from the new tax scheme. First-time buyers would stand to win big, the finance secretary added, though the new tax would increase amount of tax paid on the top 5 per cent of the most expensive homes and estates.

The change is being made in order to bring ‘more progressive’ forms of taxation, Mr Swinney said, in order to bring taxation levels better in line with the actual value of a piece of property. This new scheme will also benefit Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, as the new body he is proposing to take over the administration, to be called Revenue Scotland, would ease HMRC’s costs by about 25 per cent.

Parliament’s public accounts committee says the Revenue brought in an extra £4.32 billion in the last five years; an impressive return on the £387 million investment.

However, the chair of the committee, Margaret Hodge, pointed out that HMRC could have collected much more if it had not decided to lose more than 3,000 staff members during that time. She went on to warn the Revenue not to make any further reductions to headcount in this area.

She welcomed the Revenue’s decision to reinvest £917 million of the money it has saved in order to generate an additional £7 billion each year in tax revenue, but said the government department must be a lot clearer about the rate of return it receives from the amount it spends.

Furthermore, she said the Revenue must provide better training and improve procedures for dealing with ICT contractors in order to better integrate new computer systems with working practices. Both the Caseflow and the Spectrum systems have seen implementation delays and this meant HMRC lost out around £743 million in extra tax revenue.

She finished off by saying that the Revenue needs to place greater emphasis on tracking and evaluating the benefits of its systems. The Committee was also concerned that customer service did not seem to be high on HMRC’s list of priorities and this is a problem that needs to be addressed urgently.

As from April 2016, the Scottish Parliament will be able to set the income tax for Scottish taxpayers. The Act also allows new taxes to be created, and additional ones devolved, north of the border.

HMRC will peg the income tax rate at 10% below the rate in the rest of the UK. This means that a Scottish rate of 10% will equal the current rate, but if it is above or below 10%, Scottish taxpayers will pay a different rate to the rest of the UK.

In order to be classed as Scottish for income tax purposes, a taxpayer must have their primary residence in Scotland. This is simple enough for people with just one home, but if they have more than one residence it will be determined on where they have spent the most time in the relevant tax year.

It sounds simple enough, but such a system could be open to abuse. Obviously if the Scottish rate is set lower than that in the rest of the UK, taxpayers will be happy to have their main residence north of the border. But what happens if it is higher, not lower?

Will thousands of Scots leave Edinburgh to go and live in border towns like Berwick to escape the higher rate of tax in Scotland?

It will be interesting to see what happens when the Scottish government does start setting its own tax rate. They may not find it is not as straightforward as they had hoped!

Eurostat recently published this year’s edition of taxation trends across the Union, which shows that the average rate of VAT has increased strongly since the start of the recession and ranges from 15% in Luxembourg to 27% in Hungary.

The highest rate of personal income tax is found in Sweden, where high earners are taxed at the rate of 56.6%. Denmark is not far behind at 55.4%, followed by Belgium with a top rate of 53.7%. At the other end of the scale Bulgaria has the lowest rate at 10%.

Corporate tax rates have also been edging up this year. France has the highest rate at 36.1%, followed by Malta and Belgium with rates of 35% and 34% respectively. Bulgaria and Cyprus have the lowest rate at 10%, followed by Ireland at 12.5%.

The overall tax-to-GDP ratio across all member states in 2010 was 38.4%, unchanged from the previous year. However, the tax-to-GDP ratio in the UK did increase from 34.8% to 35.6%.

The report also contained an overview of property tax. 4.2% of GDP in the UK comes from property tax, the highest percentage of all member states. In Slovakia, Estonia and the Czech Republic, property tax contributes just 0.4% to annual GDP.

Labour taxes continue to provide nearly half of the tax revenue for EU countries, consumption taxes contribute about a third and capital taxes slightly less than 20%.

The NI holiday was introduced to encourage new start-ups to hire staff, but in the last quarter the number of businesses registering for the scheme actually decreased by 39%.

One of the main criticisms of the scheme is that it is not available to businesses in all areas of the UK. New start-ups in the south-east do not benefit from the scheme, which gives employers a 12 month holiday from paying NICs on the first ten people they hire.

The shadow business secretary, Chuka Umuuna, said businesses are put off by the complexity of the project. He told the Telegraph that the National Audit Office’s recent investigation into the Regional Growth Fund showed that the government’s growth policies are confusing and incompetent.

When the NI holiday was first introduced, the government estimated that 400,000 businesses would take advantage of it. So far, only 13,769 have used the scheme, way below target.

We keep hearing that the government wants to simplify taxation and make it easy for small businesses to grow; so why is it that every time they introduce a measure designed to help, it adds complexity rather than simplification? And why don’t they throw the scheme open to all businesses regardless of their location in the UK?

In the survey, entitled Managing Responsible Business, around 2,000 chartered accountants from all corners of the global were questioned about business ethics. It was discovered that 80% of companies now provide employees with a code of ethics, an increase of 8 percentage points from 2008. However, only 36% of companies actually collect ethics information.

Senior management has also become less interested in monitoring ethics in the workplace. In 2008, more than 85% of senior management and 68% of company boards reviewed ethics data; that has now dropped to 78% and 56% respectively.

Over the last four years, there has been an increase in those saying they sometimes felt pressured to compromise ethical standards. In developing countries, such as India and Malaysia, more than 50% of respondents said they had experienced this problem. In the UK and the US, just 18% had the same experience.

The key problem areas that were identified included awarding supplier contracts, allocating bonuses, meeting reporting deadlines and reporting company performance to the external stakeholders.

The report also discovered that 57% of organisations have implemented ethical standards training, just under 50% have a hotline that people can ring if they feel the company’s ethical standards have been violated and 25% have resorted to giving staff incentives to stick to the organisation’s code of ethics.

As from the start of next year, households with one parent earning in excess of £50,000 will see their child benefit decreased. However, the ICAEW says this goes against the principle of individual taxation, as the government will be clawing back money from one person to pay another.

It is thought that over a million families will be affected by the change although HMRC is still trying to work out how to implement the new regulations.

Child benefit will be scaled down gradually for families where a parent earns over £50,000 and it will stop completely once that person’s income reaches £60,000.

If a parent is earning more than the upper threshold, they can stop claiming child benefit. However, if they choose not to do so, they will need to declare the benefit on their self-assessment income tax return. This could lead to half a million extra people having to complete self-assessment, which would lead to more work for the Revenue.

The ICAEW has also expressed concerns that tax confidentiality could be breached and service standards could decline. Taxpayers will then lose confidence in the tax system and HMRC and tax avoidance might increase.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, explained that George Osborne has ignored repeated warnings that the legislation was unworkable and unfair and now we’re left with a complete mess.

The survey, which was conducted by American Express, discovered a more bullish attitude from countries like India, where 85% of CFOs expect their economy to expand this year, and Germany, where 73% expressed confidence. In the UK, only around 25% of CFOs are optimistic about the coming months.

CFOs around the world are hoping to invest in mergers and acquisitions in order to expand R&D and operating capacity. They also intend to increase their headcounts in the coming 12 months.

It’s a different story at home, where senior finance directors are planning to conserve cash, inflict cuts and implement tighter spending measures. However, these could just be short-term measures as 58% of CFOs in the UK expect substantial economic growth will return next year.

55% of CFOs in Britain are setting less aggressive targets this year than they did in 2011. They have aimed for realism and more than three-quarters believe they will meet these targets.

Only 24% of companies in the UK intend to increase their headcount this year and the majority will only do so in order to acquire specialist skills and improve expertise. 58% of UK CFOs say they will need to implement slight headcount reductions. Worryingly, 8% expect to see substantial cuts in employee numbers.

The continuing problems in the Eurozone are unlikely to improve CFO’s confidence in the immediate future.

The RAC commissioned a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and discovered that the amount of income the government gets from Vehicle Excise Duty and fuel duty is set to decline even though the amount of traffic on our roads is set to increase.

By 2029, there will be a £13 billion black hole as cars become more fuel-efficient and people switch to vehicles than run solely on electricity. To fill that £13 billion hole the government would need to increase the basic income tax rate by 3.5p, raise VAT to nearly 23% or increase fuel duties by 50%. None of those options would go down well with the general public.

The government wants us to buy greener cars but by doing so we are depriving the Exchequer of much needed taxes. Vehicle Excise Duty bands are already being reviewed to make sure drivers are contributing their fair share.

Under the RAC proposals, we would move towards a system of road pricing and the money raised could go towards reducing other motoring taxes. The report says that by levying a tax on the number of miles driven it would reduce congestion and leave motorists in rural areas better off. Motoring taxes would be on a stable footing without the need for the majority of drivers to contribute additional revenue.

After a series of tribunal cases last year where HMRC was accused of delaying the issue of reminder notices in order to collect more penalties, the department agreed to send out P35 reminders earlier. This would alert employers who were unaware of their obligations or had inadvertently forgotten to file.

HMRC does not know what has been filed until later in the year and so it is cheaper to send the letter to everyone. It is clear that these letters are simple reminders and they do clearly state that no action is needed if the return has already been filed or one is not due.

A further letter will be sent out early next month explaining that a £100 penalty has been incurred by those who have not yet filed and in order to avoid a further fine, employers should send in their return immediately.

However, accountants are concerned that their clients will not get a good impression if they receive a reminder when a return has already been filed.

It does seem strange that HMRC’s systems are unable to identify employers who have not filed these returns. Surely, when you file online as the majority of employers now have to do, the system could automatically place a green flag or something similar next to the account. That way, HMRC only needs to set up a filter and send letters to employers who are not flagged. It sounds simple to me!