Chancellor George Osborne has said that he will simply the "spaghetti bowl" of UK tax law to cut the burden on businesses and attract foreign investment.

Osborne is setting up an Office for Tax Simplification to streamline the 11,000-page tax code and is calling for a permanent body to ease the complication of taxes and make life easier for firms.

The new body will initially conduct two reviews - streamlining 400 tax reliefs, allowances and exemptions and simplifying the tax system for small businesses, including a simpler alternative to the controversial IR35 code.

It will advise ministers where the tax system is too complex but it will not look at tax credits, which Mr Osborne said he considered part of the benefits system.

The Chancellor said that Britain had "one of the most complex and opaque tax codes in the world".