A poll of ICAEW members has revealed that Andy Burnham’s regional investment plans are seen positively by many, but that reducing taxes on business should be his top priority.

Once you’ve done the initial set up and training of AI agents, it’s important to ensure that guardrails are in place to avoid any rogue behaviour. We outline six ways to prevent problems.

From 29 July 2026, the capital goods scheme (CGS) will no longer apply to computers and computer equipment, and the threshold for land, buildings and civil engineering work will be increased from £250,000 to £600,000.

The government has published draft legislation confirming several policy announcements made at tax update 2026 and earlier, as well as new consultations on a range of areas, including the taxation of predevelopment costs.

HMRC answered calls and responded to post more quickly in 2025/26 than in previous years. However, a survey of agents and taxpayers suggests that the quality of HMRC’s services continues to fall short of expected standards.

HMRC is writing to taxpayers who made a provisional claim for business asset rollover relief in their self assessment tax return for 2022/23 and are yet to replace it with a final claim.

ICAEW’s Tax Faculty highlights recent social security developments, including the new UK-India double contribution convention (DCC), which comes into force from 15 July 2026, and a revision to the rules applying in the European Union (EU).

ICAEW’s Tax Faculty reminds agents of the 31 July deadline for opting to have multi-factor authentication (MFA) added to their HMRC accounts on a set date, and explains the steps agents can take to prepare for the full roll-out of MFA.

Regulations made on 13 July 2026 confirm the timetable for mandatory agent registration with HMRC and explain the position for advisers that have an agent services account (ASA).

Before an organisation thinks about using AI agents, due diligence, preparatory work, system piloting and judgement are required. We outline four steps to get set up right.