Had a CT enquiry, now closed in agreed figures. Closure letter contains the sentence
"The company now has 30 days to further amend its Self Assessment to reflect my conclusions."
Given that the conclusions have already been agreed in correspondence, there are no penalties and the tax has been paid, I am trying to work out if there are any adverse consequences to ignoring this statement. After 30 days expire I would expect HMRC to raise an assessment in precisely the same figures as they currently invite the company to self assess, and by ignoring the request I save a bit of my time.
Is there really no downside to leaving it 30 days and letting HMRC do their thing?
Clint Westwood
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The point is....
Do you want to appeal against the revenue's findings? If you do then you take no action, the revenue amend the self assessment and then p34(3) gives you the right to appeal against their amendment to your self-assessment. There has to be a mechanism to enable an appeal to commence and this is it.
Consider this - you may still have a contentious issue with the revenue. They think the answer is X, you think it is Y. This gives you the right to disagree with their conclusion of the investigation. If you agree with them you can amend your self-assessment. But you can also amend the self assessment to correspond to what you still think the outcome should be. If they don't want to take the matter further but prefer to let sleeping dogs do whatever it is sleeping dogs do they can take no further action and you will have won. They can then amend the self assessment and you can decide what you want the sleeping dog to do, if you want to take it further you can now appeal against their amendment.
It may seem cumbersome but it gives each of you the ability to accept or reject the outcome of the investigation as they see it to be. Seems fair enough to me.
On further research ...
... it appears that HMRC instructions are in line with the statutory reference in paragraph 34(1) Schedule 18 Finance Act 1998.
It would seem appropriate to take no action in response to that invitation, as HMRC then have a 30 day window in which to make the required amendment under [I]ibid[/I] para 34(2). It is just possible that they might miss that deadline by an administrative failure, and then be out of time.
Someone tells me that the invitation in s.34(1) has become redundant, but it still appears on my online legislation references without suggestion of its being withdrawn. Anyone else know anything about that?