The Committees first priority in 1994 was to consider the form and organisation of UK tax legislation with a view to making proposals for its improvement. Its work and reports in this field were an important element in the then governments decision to establish the Tax Law Rewrite Project. The Committee remains closely in touch with the Rewrite Project. A separate piece of work under an ad hoc working party made recommendations for the Parliamentary procedure for enacting rewrite Bills, which were largely accepted and implemented by the government.

Following completion of this work the TLRC turned its attention to the issue of a statutory general anti-avoidance to replace the current judicial anti-avoidance doctrines. Its work in this area informed the governments own 1998 consultation on a general anti-avoidance rule, on which the Committee commented critically and which was not taken further.

Last year, the Committee established another ad hoc working party under the chairmanship of Sir Alan Budd to consider critically the current Parliamentary scrutiny (or lack of it) of tax legislation. The Budd Reports recommendations have attracted considerable attention and remain on the table for further debate.

Apart from the continuing work on tax legislation, we have recently initiated a project to look at the issues of disclosure and avoidance under self-assessment.