Why can’t they use English?

Many people think that the tax rules are written in a secret language unintelligible to any normal human being. In fact the tax code in recent years has been rewritten in an attempt to make it simpler. Whether the exercise has been successful is open to question but it certainly has made the tax legislation considerably longer in length.

Often an important word in the tax legislation is not defined at all. For example, we don’t have a definition of ‘trade’. This may seem strange at first but it can be very practical. Where a word is not defined, it is accepted that the word should be given its normal everyday meaning. Hence what is meant by ‘trade’ changes automatically over time in line with developments in the real world, without the need for constant amendments.

But what is infuriating is when the tax rules define a word and give it a meaning which is contrary to its everyday meaning.

We have that now in the proposed new rules for defining when one company is associated with another. This can occur where there is ‘substantial commercial interdependence’ between two companies each controlled by an associate. The key word here is ‘interdependence’. The draft secondary legislation which will be put before Parliament after the summer recess defines ‘interdependence’ but it does so in a way that gives it a meaning contrary to its normal meaning.
If Company A and Company B are interdependent, you would expect that Company A would need to be dependent on Company B and Company B would also need to be dependent on Company A. But the draft new rules say, if Company A is dependent on Company B, it is sufficient for interdependency. That is an abuse of the English language. You might have dependency in such circumstances, but not interdependency.
Tax is taxing enough without them deliberately misusing words. Why can’t they use Englsih?