Quick guide to the Office for Tax Simplification Underneath him sit a team of 10 tax professionals, comprising six accountants, two lawyers, an HR manager, and a former Inland Revenue tax inspector. Together with a secretariat of six, the OST from its offices in the Treasury building have been charged with working out how to turn the world's most complex tax code into something more manageable. In yesterday's Budget, with its emphasis on simplifying the way Britons pay tax, the hand of the OST could be seen behind proposals such as the removal of the age-related allowance for people over the age of age. Mr Osborne hailed the change as a "major simplification." However his action was immediately dubbed a "Granny tax" and lead to accusations the government had launched a £3bn "stealth raid" on pensioners. The controversial move made it into the Budget despite the expertise available to the OST. Among its members is Kelly Sizer, a technical officer for the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group and a volunteer for the charity TaxHelp for Older People. The OST is currently in the process of identifying the next stages of its work and will slim down the size of its secretariat in the next couple of weeks. Under its current charter the OST has a lifetime of the current Parliament, after which a review will take place to decide whether it should continue to exist.