Too close for comfort?

Finance | Socrates Socratous | 12 Jan 2012

HMRC's new dispute resolution service would instil more confidence if the facilitators were independent, says Socrates Socratous.

Only time will tell if HMRC's new Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service is useful.

Much will depend on whether the facilitators are truly independent and give unbiased guidance/comment to a dispute, or whether they take the side of HMRC. At the moment, once an officer has reached a decision on a matter, the taxpayer can ask for a review of the decision by an officer who has not been involved in the decision. However, our experience and that of many others is that the review officer will uphold the decision of the original officer. Similarly, it is not unknown for the review officer to liaise with the decision-making officer, thus bringing into question whether the review is truly independent.

Whether this new pilot will be any better remains to be seen. The theory sounds fine, but would HMRC really invest time and effort if the net result is less assessments?

The overarching problem for small taxpayers is that HMRC knows full well that if an assessment of anything up to £30,000 is issued, most taxpayers will not now fight it in the Tribunal because even if they win, they do not receive reimbursement of costs and hence are still out of pocket – unlike the historic position. In my opinion, this fundamental change to the Tribunal appeals process does no favours to small businesses as HMRC has a clear advantage.

Having said this, the theory sounds fine but the jury is out, pending how HMRC operates ADR. I would have felt more comfortable with the proposals if the facilitators were independent of HMRC and had received relevant training to consider VAT matters.

Socrates Socratous is director at SOC VAT Consultants

Directory: SOC VAT Consultants | SocVat
Who's Who: Socrates Socratous

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.

Tags

HMRC pilots new dispute resolution service

Ian Allsop (41) David Davison (36) John Tate (32) Paul Bennett (22) Tania Mason (19) Gordon Hunter (17) Robert Ashton (15) Daniel Phelan (13) Gareth Jones (8) Vibeka Mair (6)

David Philpott (6) Celina Ribeiro (5) Andrew Hind (5) Niki May Young (5) James Brooke Turner (4) Sir Stuart Etherington (4) Andrew Chaggar (4) Jeremy Swain (3) Garreth Spillane (3) Claris D'cruz (2) Richard Maitland (2) Adrian Beney (2) Iain Pritchard (2) Daniel Fletcher (2) Martin Brookes (2) Hal Broadbent (2) Stephen Hammersley (2) June O'Sullivan (2) Mark Astarita (1) Don Bawtree (1) Tim Brown (1) Sir Stephen Bubb (1) Lindsay Gray (1) Nick Ivey (1) Iona Joy (1) John Kelly (1) Heather Lamont (1) Stephen Lloyd (1) Lucy McLynn (1) Chris Oulton (1) Julian Rathbone (1) Peter Scott (1) Socrates Socratous (1) Richard Weaver (1) Karl Wilding (1) Richard Williams (1) Roger Chester (1) Paul Gibson (1) Jonathon Grapsas (1) Andrew Scadding (1) Simon Hebditch (1) Tesse Akpeki (1) Su Sayer (1) Martin Birch (1) Jonathan Lewis (1) Sara Llewellin (1) John Low (1) Dame Mary Marsh (1) Ruth Murphy (1) Colin Nee (1) Sally O’Neill (1) Julia Unwin (1) Kate Rogers (1) Malcolm Hayday (1) Nick Brooks (1) Nick Wilkie (1) Kimberley Scharf (1) Jakes Ferguson (1) Jessica Sklair (1) Joe Turner (1) Rob Dyson (1) Nick Cater (1) John May (1) Andy Williamson (1) Andrew Samuel (1) Chester Mojay-Sinclare (1) Paul Amadi (1) Neil Mapes (1) Dan Corry (1) Peter Holbrook (1) Peter Mitchell (1) Billy Dove (1) Belinda Pratten (1) Andrew Ketteringham (1) Jackie Turpin (1) Rui Domingues (1) Lynne Robb (1) Jonathan Crown (1) Ruchir Shah (1)

Less +++ More +++