This week's opinion: 9 April 2020

In these difficult times it is heartening to see our profession doing so much to help struggling businesses. For example, a family friend posted a lovely Facebook message a few days ago saying he was coming out of retirement to offer tax assistance to anybody living locally needing advice on the various HMRC subsidy schemes. 

I have seen many examples of tax advisers working long hours to deal with a deluge of client queries, often from people who are separately worried about having enough to live on. They are doing this work out of a sense of professional pride and a desire to support their clients, even though they know that they will probably have to wait months before they are paid, if indeed they will be paid at all. The tax charities are continuing to do their vital work under the enormous pressure from increased demand. I am proud to be part of a profession which has responded in such a positive way.

There is, however, another side to this. Some advisers, no doubt with the best of intentions, seem to be looking at ways of pushing the envelope to maximise the amounts that their clients will receive. This is a concern. When all we have to work with is fairly generic HMRC guidance, people are inevitably going to have different views as to the extent to which they can help clients to plan to come within the terms of the government support. But, as a profession, we have to be careful because any thoughts that collectively we were seeking to take advantage of the situation – even if only by speculating what might be possible – could rebound on us badly and draw attention away from the excellent work being done up and down the country.