The Wrong Spirit

The Inland Revenue has been concerned lately to see what changes need to be made to the régime for enquiries under self assessment now there is some experience of the new system and how it works. The research conducted by the Inland Revenue jointly with The Chartered Institute of Taxation has tended to concentrate on whether there ought to be changes in the law although the report published on 10 November ranges over wide issues.
In my view as a former Inspector now running a team dealing with enquiries in a medium-sized professional practice the problems are not the legalities and the dates of issue and posting controversy which is one to excite the lawyers so much as the people actually working enquiry cases. The problems are rather of attitude and culture.
Same old approach
The problem is that the Revenue has not changed its...