This week's opinion: 3 March 2022

I like to think of Taxation as a community rather than simply a magazine. Although many readers are happy just to read what we publish – and there is nothing wrong with that of course – we have a sizeable group of readers who want to contribute to what we do. This can be anything from writing full articles, adding points of practice, or giving feedback. We always welcome that, even when readers disagree with something we have published. Perhaps the best way of being part of our community is to contribute to the Readers’ forum either by asking questions or providing answers.

We have a really good example of the power of the forum this week. One of our regular readers, Chris Thomson, posted a question about a dispute he was having with HMRC about the availability of entrepreneurs’ relief. One of the people who responded was our much-admired contributor, Pete Miller, who was able to give Chris some very useful pointers to raise with HMRC. On the back of that, the two of them entered into correspondence and the result, as Pete explains in his article on page 8, was that Chris was able to win his case before the tribunal.

We cannot, of course, always guarantee that every forum question will lead to such a successful outcome, but this example shows just how valuable the forum can be as a way of sharing the huge experience of our readership. Have you thought about posing a question or, even better, answering one? Don’t think that you have to raise technically complex issues: in my experience it is often the very simplest questions which lead to the most interesting answers.