Tax Law Rewrite : The Way Forward: ANNEX 2: Extracts from earlier redrafts of Tax Legislation

1. In order to give a practical indication of the effects of applying the guidelines in Annex 1, we intend shortly to publish new examples of existing tax law rewritten in accordance with the principles set out in those guidelines. Our aim is to get these examples out in time for the 1 November deadline for comments on the consultative document generally.

2. Meanwhile readers considering the Annex 1 guidelines, and also the more general issues discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, might find it helpful to refer to the plain language redrafts of United Kingdom direct tax legislation that were published at the end of last year. These can be found in our report published in December 1995, and in the "Interim Report on Tax Legislation" published by the Tax Law Review Committee in November 1995. Extracts from those redrafts are reproduced below.

3. Not surprisingly, in view of the very different user groups involved, these earlier redrafts range widely, from the very simple and direct Rent-a-Room Relief redrafted by the Special Committee of Tax Law Consultative Bodies to the more traditionallydrafted Enterprise Investment Scheme rewritten by Parliamentary Counsel. The final two extracts come from redrafts sponsored by the TLRC, both of which also made substantial use of explanatory material, and are reproduced by permission.

4. None of these earlier examples of plain language drafting was drafted by reference to the new guidelines, and each has been written by bodies who naturally have their own views on the best way to proceed. But there is a good deal of common ground.

5. For instance, all the redrafts involve:

• reorganising the provisions to bring out their logical order (Chapter 2, paragraphs 11-13);

• expressing the reordered provisions more clearly through the use of a greater number of shorter sentences (Annex 1, Paragraphs 2-4);

• replacing the existing words with simpler and more direct terms (Annex 1, paragraphs 36-66); and

• improving the internal signposting within the provision, and the quality of the crossreferences to other provisions (Annex 1, paragraphs 77-82).

6. Although expressed in different ways, in every case the drafters have tried to provide the reader with an early idea of what the provision is about. To varying degrees, they have made greater use of the active rather than the passive voice, and expressed conditions and qualifying statements in a positive rather than a negative sense. And all have tried to make definitions more identifiable to the reader, by different structural and layout means.

7. And three of the four redrafts adopt a layout different - sometimes radically different - from that normally used for tax legislation. That is the issue discussed in Chapter 3 of this consultative document.

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Rent-a-Room (Before)		Rent-a-Room (After)

Enterprise Investment Scheme (Before)		Enterprise Investment Scheme (After)

Roll-over Relief (Before)		Roll-over Relief (After)

Post-cessation Expenditure Relief (Before)		Post-cessation Expenditure Refief (After)