Andrew Needham looks at reaching agreements with HMRC and how much the taxpayer can rely on them.
Businesses often have areas of uncertainty and write to HMRC to clarify the position; mostly, HMRC just refers the business to their published guidance. This policy is mostly unhelpful to businesses as they will have already read HMRC guidance but are still uncertain as to how it applies to their particular circumstances.
When a business manages to convince HMRC that they should provide a proper response to their query, HMRC sometimes provides a ‘non-statutory clearance’, where a business can demonstrate genuine uncertainty or inadequate guidance.
Even when a business obtains a non-statutory clearance, HMRC states that it is only its opinion and is not binding on any party. If the business considers the advice to be wrong, it can simply ignore it, but worryingly, HMRC does not consider itself to be bound by
