Newth Talks Tax: Tax investigation - change in inspector's attitude
Steve Drake disclosed that he had been involved in tax work for over 18 years, in his query of 21 June 2007. He currently had two SA enquiries in progress, both of which had been run for nearly two years.
The first enquiry concerned a lady hairdresser, who is making annual profits of about £15,000.
Continued...
The full article is available to registered AccountingWEB members only. To read the rest of this article you’ll need to login or register.
Registration is FREE and allows you to view all content, ask questions, comment and much more.
Or if you are already registered, login here
diaries
I did have a case where the outstanding demnand was for the appointment book (yes, a hairdresser) and we went for - and got - a closure notice, having pointed out that the book would include appointments which were in fact missed and so not paid for !.
Appointment Diaries
John
I am in complete agreement with your point about these not being a book of account. It seems however that our view is most certainly not shared by most if not all Inspectors. They view them as an essential tool of their enquiry information gathering process. They also regard the contents of the diary as being "written in stone". Every recorded appointment is religiously kept by the client and so there is the opportumity for the Inspector to build a completely erroneous Business Economics Exercise. Provision of them to the Inspector should be resisted at all costs.
Diaries
I agree, an appointment diary is not a record required to prepare a complete and correct return.
However, it doesn't help that the powers that be do not understand this. In the Finance Bill debates the Government response to concerns about the new information powers included one that a diary would be a "statutory record" (ie in effect the records which must be kept in order to prepare an accurate tax return) if it were a business appointment diary, such as a hairdresser might keep!