I was talking to a VAT colleague of mine who was commiserating with me about the fact that the Inland Revenue have got “all these new powers” and the fact that Customs have had them for years. The reason for this empathy – they knew that it had taken sometime for things to settle down, cases to be tested etc in relation to over exuberant (let’s be generous, it’s Wednesday!) officers, well be warned here we go again in relation to the Inland Revenue.

It is important that tax payers and advisors are not simply intimidated when faced with what amounts to threatening behaviour by compliance officers – this employment tax expert for one would like to hear your experiences of the new regime. Put in simple language the top brass at the Revenue are quite frankly bricking it, in relation to what may occur in the first 12 -18 mths – they are anticipating problems but what have they done to reign these people in – very little at ground level. Some are already running around threatening people with formal action even when they have no legal obligation to provide information – don’t get me wrong, we are not talking about offshore accounts and banks these are people who are not under review. One case brought to our attention this week was where individuals have already provided a response, regarding contractual terms of engagement, but the compliance officer doesn’t like the answer – ie it does not agree with their opinion, as it yields no money, so they are now threatening these people – well guess what we’re not standing for this and we urge all our readers to be aware of this sort of abuse of power and get in touch – if we don’t bring these people to account no one will – you have been warned!