How many meetings did it take to come up with this little gem, backwards and forwards it went the language changed and in certain circumstances toned down – what may you wonder caused such debate, well it’s “Your Charter”. Am I the only person to worry about this title?

Have you actually read “Your rights” the ordering of which cause this employment tax expert some concern. For example, it ranks only third as far as HMRC are concerned but it is the fundamental bedrock of our judicial system – that you will be treated as honest (or in legal speak innocent until you are proven guilty). How many of you have been through employer compliance reviews, tax investigations, tax enquiries etc where it is blatantly obvious that the premise is that you are guilty of some sort of wrongdoing until you can prove that you are not and how much time, cost and stress are you put through? but according to point 9 they will do all they can to keep the cost of dealing with them as low as possible – absolute rot if you look at the Arctic Systems case.

So while we are on the subject let’s have a look at some other rights of the tax payer – number 8, that HMRC will accept that someone else can represent you – now come on how far do HMRC want to alienate everyone. In the past good relations could be struck with Inland Revenue officials, now we have compliance officers referring to agents as obstructive – why because they disagree with HMRC – well tough, formal representation should never be overlooked by any company or individual as point 5 perfectly illustrates. Point 5 – you can expect HMRC to make decisions in accordance with the law – obviously not written by someone who has ever been involved in an employment status “discussion”. Case law is fundamental in employment status but so many employment status inspectors merely quote internal guidance on these cases rather than having the time to fully evaluate them. I had one recently where I had to bite my tongue as they had actually added words to a quote from a tax case and then used it totally out of context. This is a worrying trend and should always be something that clients are made aware of because so many see HMRC as this all powerful body when in fact there is a lack of a consistent approach to cases, a lack of genuine training in case law and its not in most circumstances the fault of the individual officers. These people are driven by results and especially in the current climate with the national debt in the hundreds of billions this policy is not going to change.

So the moral is, yes a nice piece of hypothetical paperwork but devoid from reality and who will be monitoring this and changing the mindset of compliance officers, pre visit – taxpayers are “INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY”