Top tax professional joins HMRC's board

A leading tax commentator and campaigner is set to join HM Revenue and Customs as a non-executive Director.

John Whiting will be a familiar name to UKTECH readers as Tax Policy Director of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) and also as the current Tax Director at the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) who were responsible for the review of and changes to the approach to IR35 implementation. Mr Whiting will take up a position on the HMRC board from April 1 2013 and will chair the Department's Audit and Risk Committee. He will cease being employed by the CIOT at the same time, but will remain involved in the Institute. He will also remain in his role as Tax Director of the OTS.

CIOT President Patrick Stevens welcomed the announcement. He said: "The CIOT has long argued that there needs to be more tax experience at the top of HMRC, including on the Department's board. I am delighted that the Government are delivering this with the appointment of an experienced tax professional such as John Whiting to the Department's board.

"The Institute's loss will be HMRC's gain. John's expertise and understanding of the tax system is unsurpassed.

"Clearly HMRC are going through challenging times. The pressure on them to improve tax compliance rates has never been greater. At the same time they are having to find resources to improve poor service levels as well as coping with the child benefit charge and real-time information.

"There is no magic bullet but having practical tax expertise at the top of the Department can only be an advantage. Involving at a senior level individuals from the tax profession will help enhance HMRC's understanding of tax agents and how they need to play a key part in HMRC's strategy going forward."

Before joining CIOT, Mr Whiting had a long career with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) where he was a tax partner for 25 years. He was awarded the OBE in 2008 for services to the tax profession.