Journal :: The Intelligence of HM Customs and Revenue Staff

Published: November 16, 2004
Author: Graham Dragon
Category: Tax
Permalink: The Intelligence of HM Customs and Revenue Staff

Inland Revenue are not particularly known for interesting and readable publications. So I was a little surprised to notice their publication ?Doing it Online?. Of course, when you read it, the content is not what perhaps you might have expected from the title and turns out to be about as inspiring as anything else they have written. A reflection perhaps of the intellectual style of the employees of that particular civil service department.

Which leads me neatly to the topic for today. Not the content of that publication but the intellectual qualities of Inland Revenue staff.

To be very fair, no matter what we may think of our local Inspector of Taxes, the intellectual powers of the staff at HM Customs & Revenue ? to give the department its proper title ? are high. Witness the performance of the Inland Revenue team in the special University Challenge programme earlier this year. Clearly things have changed greatly since the Northcote-Trevelyan report, which stated that ?admission into the Civil Service is ?. for the unambitious, and the indolent or incapable?.

Sometimes, though, their logic does seem to be in complete contrast to reason. They may be highly intelligent, but the way in which they use that intelligence is often quite different from the way you and I use our own intelligence.

I think this has two important repercussions for those of us involved in tax planning for our clients. Firstly, do not expect that HM Customs & Revenue will necessarily look at any scheme in the same way as you. This could either be advantageous or disadvantageous, but in order to steer the safer path I always assume they will see something disadvantageous (to my client, that is) which I have not yet spotted. I suggest you do the same.

Secondly, if you are now marketing schemes which have to be reported under the new Anti-Avoidance Regulations, you must take care that the information you send in is sufficient for an officer of the Revenue to understand how the proposed scheme is intended to operate. Note the wording of the Regulations here ? not the usual assumption that the ?ordinary man on the top of the London omnibus? would understand, but specifically that an officer of the Revenue would.

I can envisage future court cases where the adviser felt sufficient information had been disclosed, but where the Revenue are arguing it was insufficient for their staff to understand. Maybe they will even go back to the wording of the Northcote-Trevelyan report to show the adviser should have appreciated the report would not have been understood clearly enough! But perhaps your answer could be that the results of a recent University Challenge are rather more relevant than an 1853 report ? which is why, recognising the prowess of your local Inspector, you chose to put so little additional detail in your report!

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About Graham Dragon

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