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I was quite appalled to read in Taxation 12 June 2008 about the announcement by HMRC in the 'What's new' area of its website that it will no longer provide captured vouchers lists or their new equivalent to taxpayers or their agents.

According to their website: 'The provision of payment and deduction details to subcontractors and their agents has become a growing problem'. Sorry but small practitioners are the ones at the sharp end who help keep this self-assessment system hanging together. I don't like being labelled as a 'problem'.

For those of us in the real world it is not unusual for subcontractors accounting records to comprise an envelope of construction industry scheme vouchers and a bag of fuel receipts. It is rare for such individuals to maintain a formal day book of payments due and tax deducted.

That's not a problem for...