Certificate of full disclosure

Certificate of full disclosure

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Are there any guidelines in the public domain that advise under which circumstances, on the closure of an enquiry, HMRC should ask for a certificate of full disclosure?  At present I cannot detect a pattern.

Thanks

With kind regards

Clint Westwood

Replies (5)

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By bernard michael
20th Apr 2016 10:53

I thought it was routine for them to ask for one. They've always done so with cases I've handled

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By johngroganjga
20th Apr 2016 11:02

Yes it's routine for them to ask. There is no obligation on the taxpayer to complete it though.

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By nogammonsinanundoubledgame
20th Apr 2016 11:12

So what to advise?

It may be routine to ask but it certainly is not universal. Enquiries that I term fairly trivial where HMRC has a PAYE income source on record where they know the numbers and are just asking for confirmation are not in my experience normally accompanied by a cert of full disclosure.

Where there is a bank account interest figure omitted, again where HMRC know the numbers from reports provided by the bank, I have also known them not to ask for a certificate, although this seems to be less consistently applied.

Do you as a matter of policy ask clients not to sign them? And in that case do you notify HMRC that the document will not be supplied, or do you just ignore the request?  Does that delay closure, and could it have an effect on penalty loading?

With kind regards

Clint Westwood

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By SteveHa
20th Apr 2016 12:16

I think it will depend on the grade of the HMRC officer conducting the enquiry, bearing in mind that even Tax Officers (one below HEO level) are doing S9A work these days. They will, typically, only deal with aspect enquiries and even then, relatively straight forward. It's unlikely that they would even consider a certificate of full disclosure.

The higher up the HMRC food chain you go, though, the more complex an enquiry may be, including expanding into a full enquiry from an aspect, and so more likely for a certificate to be requested.

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By AndyC555
20th Apr 2016 12:48

HMRC Enquiry Manuals says.....

Read EM3811 et seq

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