A recent Court of Appeal decision reaffirms HMRC’s right to conduct enquiries on an ‘informal’ premise even where there is no statutory basis, write Kate Ison and Jessica Hocking (Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner).
HMRC has extensive powers to open enquiries into taxpayers’ returns and to issue wide-ranging information notices in order to investigate a taxpayer’s position. These statutory powers are subject to certain safeguards to protect taxpayers’ rights. In particular in order to afford a taxpayer certainty as to its position HMRC must open an enquiry into a return within the strict time limits prescribed by the relevant legislation; if it does not then in principle it is time barred from doing so and the return is final subject to the discovery provisions.
However HMRC’s increasingly frequent practice is to open informal investigations outside of the...
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A recent Court of Appeal decision reaffirms HMRC’s right to conduct enquiries on an ‘informal’ premise even where there is no statutory basis, write Kate Ison and Jessica Hocking (Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner).
HMRC has extensive powers to open enquiries into taxpayers’ returns and to issue wide-ranging information notices in order to investigate a taxpayer’s position. These statutory powers are subject to certain safeguards to protect taxpayers’ rights. In particular in order to afford a taxpayer certainty as to its position HMRC must open an enquiry into a return within the strict time limits prescribed by the relevant legislation; if it does not then in principle it is time barred from doing so and the return is final subject to the discovery provisions.
However HMRC’s increasingly frequent practice is to open informal investigations outside of the...
If you or your firm subscribes to Taxjournal.com, please click the login box below:
If you do not subscribe but are a registered user, please enter your details in the following boxes:
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