Powers breakfast

KEY POINTS

• Possible challenges to discovery assessments
• HMRC have increasing powers with regard to compliance checks
• HMRC's expanding criminal investigative powers

HMRC powers were the subject of a breakfast briefing hosted by Taxation and Berwin Leighton Paisner which took place on 29 April 2008 in central London.

Short articles from Keith Gordon Andrew Watters and Jonathan Levy follow. Mike Truman's talk was based on his article Carrier bag blues. He discussed Sch 37 'Record keeping' and Sch 36 Part 2 'Powers to inspect businesses etc'.

Discovery assessments

Keith M Gordon MA(Oxon) FCA CTA(Fellow) barrister

Discovery assessments are HMRC's tool for raising tax outside the context of a self assessment enquiry. Although discovery assessments are often made when an enquiry in respect of one tax year (or accounting period) highlights apparent errors in respect of another ...