This had “Important changes to the National Insurance System, please read instruction pages carefully”.I make that 231 pages of instructions for this five-person company This raises obvious questions. I have an economics degree and spent most of my life writing about finance. But there is no way I could cope with these documents without professional help. The problem is not that the documents are written badly, for an effort seems to have been made to use plain English. Only occasionally do they SHOUT AT YOU by using capital letters or heavy type.True, there is a tinge of the faux-friendly coupled with the hint of menace. “Call for help with the April payroll changes and our frontline staff will be prepared to spring into action.

After all we want to make sure employers avoid the possible sanctions they could face if things are neglected.” Frontline staff? Spring into action? Yuk. But the problem is not the documents but the sheer complexity of the system they have to try to explain.Second, if this is the pack for a small business, what would the pack for a medium-sized one be like, let alone one for a multinational? But a bigger business would have hired professionals to cope, and clever professionals are usually able to save their salary, and much more, by exploiting opportunities in the tax code. So the complexity adds to costs, because it demands professional attention, in-house or contracted out to an accountant. But it also adds to the opportunities for saving tax.But, for a small business, complexity is a disaster, drawing scarce management time away from the actual business.Third, what is this system trying to do? Is it to raise money? Yes, of course, but it is a system designed to make it easy for the employee, rather than the employer. In a world where most people are employed by large organisations that is fine. But every day there is another announcement of a large organisation cutting its workforce: Unilever, Ford, NatWest. We have a system designed for an economy that is fast disappearing.

All the new jobs are coming from small enterprises, five-person businesses, such as the one that received this 231-page package, or from self-employment. Sooner or later the tax system will have to adapt to the new economy.Fourth, why is the Government adding to the complexity of the tax system? Gordon Brown is a particular offender, for every Budget there is a plethora of changes. Looking through the Employer’s Bulletin, there are changes on company cars, new tax codes, stuff about an Electronic Business Unit, details of Enterprise Management Incentives, Employee Share Plans, the New Deal 50-plus programme, Payroll Giving, Stakeholder Pensions, the new Construction Industry Scheme, and Leap Year 2000. Gordon Brown is a clever and decent man, but he has never run a business.He has no perception of what it feels like to open a tax package like that.