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We have been hearing much about regulation recently.
Employment laws are a minefield and health and safety issues
are neither healthy nor safe for small businesses.
David Ingall, partner, J.W. Pickles & Co,
Selby [04 Nov
1999]
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Let me be
quite clear about this. I am in favour of regulation. I am a
chartered accountant in private practice and make my living
through the ultimate in regulation, the UK tax laws. But enough
is enough, the constant flow of new regulation looks set to
drown us all in the minutiae of bureaucracy. There are a number
of contributory factors. There is, of course, Europe, as
bureaucrats both sides of the Channel look for
'simplification' and 'clarification' in the name of
harmonisation. Can you imagine a cross between our Inland
Revenue, with their fear of being taken for a ride by tax
experts and the EU when the goal is the Holy Grail of 'tax
harmonisation'. That surely is the great nightmare we may be
looking forward to soon. Our new government, intent on making
its mark on the business world, is creating its own web of
regulation, ensnaring the unwary, as well as the wary into the
frustrations of regulation with draconian penalties. The new
regulatory bodies which will deal with various subjects from
selling houses to selling financial products are creating
another suffocating layer of rules crushing enterprise and
entrapping growing business and high fliers into the bondage
of mediocrity. What is the problem? I would suggest that our
legislators are not truly answerable for their actions. The
fix, in our modern society, has to be immediate and spin
doctors pledge delivery, salvation and the promised land at a
stroke. Perhaps in the past it was not so much the idea that
Parliament examined every line of legislation but that time
was limited and the use of statutory instruments allowing
government departments to write their own regulations was an
abrogation of governmental responsibility. But what is the
answer? Perhaps we should demand that Ministers examine and
understand every rule and regulation they allow to be brought
into being, from the new FSA rules, to those on withholding
taxes, to a new really simplified Income Tax Return Form. Or
is that really such a good idea?
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