Does the completion of Self Employment "Short" pages instead of normal SE form increase the chances of an enquiry?

If HMRC want to open an enquiry they will.

Look at it this way: why has that business filled in the full pages. Maybe they have something to hide. We will investigate that business as they have filled in the full pages, when the short pages were all that was required.

... that the effect is minimal.

We tend to avoid doing 3-line accounts, and I certainly have some empirical evidence that a 3-liner which generates a loss which is then relieved against other income has some tendency to attract scrutiny which might have been avoided with more disclosure.

With kind regards

Clint Westwood

I actually had the idea that HMRC would prefer the 3 line account and it doubtless goes easier on the ZX spectrum they have processing the damn things. Why else do they keep increasing the turnover threshold for it?

Given that we all use software to such an extent for the actual tax return, perhaps we are getting a bit out of touch with how limited the disclosure in the return actually is. Even when completing the full self employment supplement, you would have a hard time identifying what a business spent money on.

Of course, some practioners are probably still trying to figure out how to send a copy of the accounts along with the tax return. I have no doubt some are even attaching pdfs.

We've always used the short disclosure and I can only remember one instance where we thought it best to play safe by explaining why the expenditure was so much higher than past years.  Can't remember the reason but, as mentioned above, a full page wouldn't have given the info, so we added it to additional info.

Anyway never had a query over any such returns.  If you are happy with the underlying numbers then an enquiry could easily be settled with one letter.