This week's opinion: 28 March 2019

Contributors to this magazine, myself included, do not hesitate to criticise the performance of HMRC when it falls short of the standards we expect.

This is as it should be. The department’s work touches almost everybody in the UK at some point and we all know of cases where HMRC’s actions have created needless additional work for clients and advisers. Sometimes it causes real anguish and stress.

But I try to ensure that we take a balanced approach in these pages – not least because our readership includes many people within HMRC, who have every right to expect us to be fair and reasonable in what we write about the department. So I draw your attention to the remarks of the First-tier Tribunal judge in H Kaura (TC7032) (tinyurl.com/ftt7032):

‘Having read through the correspondence, I consider that [the HMRC officers] conducted themselves at all times during the period in question as one would wish officers of the respondents to behave, despite the fact that they were dealing with some trying circumstances. Their communications show that they were extremely sensitive and sympathetic to the position of the appellant and bent over backwards to be as accommodating to her predicament as they could be.’

It is really good to see that the old-fashioned public service ethic has not gone away.

If you do one thing…

On Sunday tell your mother how much she means to you. But don’t do it in a way that jeopardises your entitlement to main residence relief! Robert Mass explains all in his article ‘Where the heart is’ on page 8.