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26 Jul 2011
HM REVENUE & CUSTOMS will contact new businesses to offer them a "telephone education" to help them understand their tax obligations.
A briefing note said that the telephone education will be both reactive and proactive. The reactive element will be offered as an alternative to face-to-face workshops, while the taxman will also proactively contact businesses "at key stages in their lifecycles", such as starting up.
A pilot has already been launched, with the taxman contacting new businesses offering to "talk them through the main things they need to know.
The calls will focus on areas such as business taxes, expenses and allowances, being an employer, VAT and record keeping among other things.
HMRC says that this will use its "existing education delivery team" to make the calls. The team will not have access to live records, meaning it will not be able to discuss any issues directly related to the business's tax obligations.
ICAEW said it was "pleased to note that HMRC has taken care to consider the role of agents". It added: "HMRC will ask early on in the telephone conversations whether the taxpayer has an agent, and if so, will just provide ‘general messages on record-keeping' and cover any areas for which the agent is not acting."
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Visitor comments Add your comment
Plausible deniability
"No, we did not tell you to do that, it was just an advisory call. I as an inspector am not bound by what any of my colleagues has said"
BRING BACK LOCAL TAX OFFICES
with staff who can see the whole picture
Posted by: Eleanor, 26 Jul 2011 | 11:19
SMEs or new businesses or small businesses
We all suffer from the way that the acronym SME means different things to different people.
In your headline it seems to be a convenient abbreviation for small businesses. Technially though it refers to small AND Medium Sized businesses with a turnover upto almost £36m. And that strict definition describes 99.9% of all UK businesses.
The opening para of this article then suggests that the targets are NEW (and typically therefore, VERY small) businesses. Not quite the same thing at all. And therefore of only academic interest to FDs I would suggest.
Sorry.
Posted by: Mark Lee, 26 Jul 2011 | 14:31
..and who
will give advice to HMRC as they seem to lack any form of business expertise at the best of times?
Any time they are contacted on a range of business taxation matters they demonstrate poor business understanding and ability to grasp the solution to even the simplest of business issues!
Posted by: Colin Andrews, 26 Jul 2011 | 14:57
I would not trust them
I imagine that HMRC will have their usual attitude that should someone follow their advise (be it incorrect) and underpay taxes then there is no mititgation and full penalties will prevail
Posted by: Steve Walton, 26 Jul 2011 | 16:09
Oh Joy
"The calls will focus on areas such as business taxes, expenses and allowances, being an employer, VAT and record keeping among other things.". Yes, because we can all trust HMRC to get that advice right, can't we?
Great, so now we will have even more clients arguing the toss because "the Revenue said x, so that must be right."
Posted by: Vir Cantium, 27 Jul 2011 | 14:33