Service Companies Question on Self Assessment Tax Return

Service Companies Question on Self Assessment...

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Further to Keith M Gordon approach to the question on Service Companies:

So, we are back to where we were last year. Assuming that HMRC will honour the contents of the letter they sent me in every other taxpayer's case (and it would seem most unreasonable if they didn't), we can be assured that non-completion of the service company question will not give rise to an automatic £300 penalty.

For the reasons set out in my article in Taxation, 18 September 2008, I remain firmly of the view that the question is not a lawful tax return question and need not be answered. Unless someone persuades me otherwise, I do not propose to answer it (and will state the fact on the return itself).

Should HMRC deem my return incomplete and seek to penalise me, I will be prepared to defend myself.
I will naturally keep everyone informed of developments. In the meantime, thank you to everyone who expressed their support. Common sense has prevailed and we didn't need to recruit Joanna Lumley.

How are others dealing with this, as it would appear again to be another mess just like the P35 question?

Jason
Holden Associates
A Blog for Small Business

Replies (7)

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Euan's picture
By Euan MacLennan
06th Aug 2009 13:47

It is people like you ...
... who betray the mass passive resistance of the rest of us who answer the question and thus, overload the Revenue with too much information which they do not have the resources to pursue.

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By jasonholden
06th Aug 2009 14:45

.
These sort of answers are the very reason many have stopped posting here Euan.

It is people like you ........... The question is a reasonable one, one that I have posted out of curiosity, and one that no doubt others will wonder about how the 'masses' are tackling, and certainly does not deserve such a response as you have given.

Jason

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Euan's picture
By Euan MacLennan
06th Aug 2009 16:39

Oooh! Touchy!
Jason

The bulk of your post was not a question. It was a personal statement of what you were doing and are going to do in future. I am not sure why you think we needed to know that.

At the very end, you asked what others were doing and I gave you an answer. If you object to my terminology, let me rephrase it:

I am completing the service company question on tax returns. I suspect that most others are doing likewise, if only because the question is asked.

However, neither of us will know unless there are a lot more responses to your personal statement.

And I think you are wrong that the "very" reason why people have stopped posting on this site is the tone of some of the answers. It may deter some people from asking a question for the first time, but you are not in that category. If people have stopped posting, I suspect it is mainly because of the unfamiliarity (or some might say, user unfriendliness) of the new layout.

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By User deleted
06th Aug 2009 17:08

OP
Hi

The original poster isn't giving a synopsis of what he is doing, it is a quote from the barrister who has been pursuing the legals of the question with HMRC directly. As it stands, it seems that he has managed to get HMRC to agree that there are no fines for non-completion of the question. I would therefore suggest that it is quite an important part of the post.

I personally would be interested to hear what others are doing because I was unaware that the majority of people were answering the question.

Thanks

Baggy

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By jasonholden
06th Aug 2009 17:18

At least read the question Euan ..
Euan,

The text is reproduced from Keith Gordon's blog, I thought it was clear by the : and then the text, apparently not.

The text is not a statement of what we are doing, but what he is doing, and it was for that reason that I asked the question out of curiosity, something I thought AWeb was all about, a community coming together to share views etc, so please at least have the decency and respect for the poster to read the question properly if you are going to answer.

I disagree on the later part, the new layout works, different to the original but hey, and the vast majority of posters who posted when I used to post a lot left AWeb long before the cosmetic change and in part I would say for the reason I mentioned, that and the standard and repetitive nature of postings.

Jason

Update: Baggy posted just before I posted this, so sorry if it sounds like I ignored the posting.

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By whiteandco
15th Aug 2009 13:39

I, for one, thank you, Jason, for your blog
I have been pondering this question from my solitary desk. It goes against the grain to answer it if there are patently no IR35 implications linked to the income declared within the rest of the Return. It is my own held belief (although I am not aware these are shared by others) that the Revenue are on a fishing trip, not only for potentional IR35's, but, I feel, more importantly to see just how many small businesses are exercising the low salary/dividend income policy. Once in possession of those facts they will use this to influence policy changes so that such dividends are taxed as salaries.

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By nogammonsinanundoubledgame
14th Jan 2015 11:29

Can't find the update link now, but ...

Keith Gordon originally stirred the pot with this article

http://www.taxation.co.uk/taxation/articles/2008/09/17/6871/answer

Since then he has written some updates per his list of articles shown here:

http://www.atlastaxchambers.com/barristers/barrister.php?member=keith_m_gordon&pageno=4

Unfortunately the references to the subsequent relevant articles are not in the form of hyperlinks and I don't know now how to retrieve them.  But following them as they progressed I recall that he effectively got tacit admission from HMRC that the question was ultra vires and without statutory foundation.

With kind regards

Clint Westwood

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