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GP wins patient confidentiality tribunal

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13th Mar 2014
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A Scottish GP has won an appeal to protect patient confidentiality after a tax tribunal ruled that she did not have to give her business diary to HMRC to help it check her tax affairs.

Kathleen Long - a locum GP working on Scotland’s west coast - appealed to the first-tier tax tribunal in Edinburgh on 17 January, after the Revenue demanded she produce her business diary regarding her self-assessment tax return.

Long contacted HMRC when she realised that she had made an error in her 2010-2011 tax return.

The Revenue then asked Long to send on her business diary to help it check her income and expenditure.

In evidence presented to the tribunal, John Cahill, of Cahill Jacks Associates, chartered accountants who appeared on behalf of Long, argued that there was nothing in Long’s diaries which would assist HMRC in checking her tax affairs.

This was because the diaries contained clinical and personal information but no financial information.

In the tribunal ruling Judge J Gordon Reid, said: “While most business records may have some possible bearing on taxpayer’s position, in the present circumstances I do not see what use HMRC can make of these business appointments diaries.”

On the issue of patient confidentiality Reid cited a ruling from a European Court of Human Rights case from 1997, which said that “respecting the confidentiality of health data is a vital principle” in the legal systems covered by the convention.

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