Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray MP was the keynote speaker at a Parliamentary reception held on 11 November 2024 to officially launch the new Centre for the Analysis of Taxation (CenTax).

MPs, peers, invited guests from tax and business think tanks, research groups and the media, and guests from the University of Warwick and the LSE gathered in the Attlee Suite in Portcullis House for the event, which was co-hosted by the APPG on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax. Among the University of Warwick guests were Vice-Chancellor Professor Stuart Croft, Provost Professor Emma Flynn and Head of the Department of Economics Professor Ben Lockwood.

Mr Murray said: “Rigorous, quantitative and qualitative research is critical to this government’s decision-making process and its tax administration policies.

“We greatly value the contribution made by external academics and researchers and we are keen to see more, which is why I am here today, which is why I want to have a vote of confidence in the work that CenTax will do, and why I want to make sure that collaboration between CenTax, Treasury and HMRC continues for many years into the future.”

Mr Murray also set out some of the goals the new Government has to improve how tax is administered in the UK, including implementing a digital strategy to enable more people to organise their tax affairs online; taking action to close the tax gap; and modernising, digitising and reforming HMRC services.

The launch of CenTax marks the next stage of an ambitious research and policy agenda which began six years ago when CenTax Directors Dr Arun Advani and Dr Andy Summers first started working together.

Dr Summers spoke briefly to thank the centre’s supporters, and highlight the unique strengths of CenTax, saying: “We wanted to highlight three things that make us distinctive. The first is that we are a team of economists and lawyers. We think this is essential for effective tax policy analysis.

“The second is that we are able to work on policy development from end to end – we’re not just aiming to evaluate existing policies.

“Finally, we think that government needs input from academic researchers and that the public interest is best served by the independent scrutiny that academic research can provide. With the best will in the world, government analysts don’t always have time to follow the latest advances in econometric methods or the vast international literature. We are here to help.”

Dr Summers also highlighted that CenTax was committed to political independence and full academic transparency.

Dr Advani gave some insights into how CenTax chooses its research projects: “It’s about producing research that really matters for policymaking, and looking for the questions that we don’t yet have the answers to.

“One thing you can expect from our work is that it will be agenda-setting, not just responsive. A major part of where we think we can add value is in setting out the issues and the evidence in areas that people are not already talking about.

“It’s a really exciting time to be launching a new centre focused on tax. Clearly there’s a lot of demand out there for it, which is wonderful. While recognising the huge amounts of work that already go on in this space, I hope we’ve highlighted that we have something genuinely distinctive to offer, and we look forward to working with you all to deliver it.”

Dr Advani concluded by inviting all present to engage with the new centre, whether by speaking to the research team in the room, visiting the website, signing up to CenTax’s newsletter, or getting in touch by email.

13 November 2024