Readers’ forum: HMRC’s request for overseas income or gains information

One of my clients has received a letter saying that HMRC ‘has received information suggesting they may have received overseas income or gains that they may have to pay UK tax on’.

The letter asks the client to complete a certificate and return it within a month.

The certificate gives four options: ‘I need to make a disclosure’ ‘I believe I have declared everything’ ‘I have not declared overseas income and gains because they are covered by allowances’ and ‘I have not declared because the income and gains are exempt’.

I am wondering how to respond to this ‘request’. In my view this is not ‘information reasonably required to check the tax position’. I am not sure that HMRC has the right to require a taxpayer to sign such a certificate and I am not sure that it is in any way helpful to my...