Concord over discord?

KEY POINTS

HMRC’s Litigation Settlement Strategy (LSS) does not preclude mediation.

Should the pilot scheme exclude cases where no compromise is possible?

Costs would probably be split between the parties.

Mediation is unlikely to be used in more than a small minority of cases.

So what are your views on the use of alternative dispute resolution to resolve tax cases? Haven’t a clue? It wasn’t really a subject I had thought about either until I attended the ICAEW Tax Faculty Wyman Symposium on 6 July. However collaborative approaches to resolving tax disputes are very topical as the Tax Faculty chairman Chris Sanger reminded us in his introduction to the symposium and the specific approach of mediation has attracted significant attention in the large corporate tax market.

Chris introduced three speakers to discuss the subject: Geoff Lloyd director...