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Busy Practitioner by Mark McLaughlin ATII TEP

Dealing with the Inland Revenue is more flexible than ever before, in terms of communication channels. Mark McLaughlin ATII ATT TEP outlines one such medium - 'business by telephone'.Channels of communication with the Inland Revenue seem to be constantly expanding. Practitioners can now deal with many aspects of their clients’ affairs by telephone and can file tax returns and view statements of account over the internet. Compulsory ‘e-filing’ of end of year returns (forms P35 and P14) commences for larger employers with 2004/05 returns, and for other employers no later than 2010. Practitioners must therefore keep up with the changes taking place! Recent changes in ‘business by telephone’ are outlined below.

Business by Telephone

In August 1998, the Inland Revenue announced the introduction of ‘business by telephone’ (Statement of Practice 02/98). Originally, this service was restricted to individual customers calling on their own behalf. However, it has now been extended to authorised agents and other ‘personal representatives’ (Statement of Practice 02/03). In December 1998, the first Inland Revenue Contact Centre was introduced for taxpayers, authorised agents and certain others (Statement of Practice 08/98). Contact Centre security technology offers additional services to those taxpayers whose affairs are dealt with in an office served by one.

Some tax offices are serviced by Contact Centres, while others are not. A list of Contact Centres is included as an Annex to Statement of Practice 03/03. In both cases, the Revenue will accept certain types of taxpayer information from agents, if evidence of the taxpayer’s authority to act is held (written evidence is required in the case of non-Contact Centre taxpayers). The client’s written authority must be provided in any event where a new agent commences to act.

The Revenue will accept the following types of information from taxpayers or their agents over the telephone.

• Personal details (for example, date of birth and National Insurance number);
• Employment details (for example, details of new employments), but not pay and tax details;
• Personal allowance claims (note that for non-Contact Centre taxpayers, any claims for previous years must be made in writing);
• Claims for certain expenses (for example, claims for professional subscriptions up to £100);
• Benefit in kind details for employees (for example, for pay as you earn tax coding purposes); and
• Other information (for example, receipt of state pension, small amounts of income such as gross interest), mainly for pay as you earn coding purposes.

The above information and claims should of course also be included in the taxpayer’s self-assessment return, if one is completed. In addition, the Revenue will provide the following details to taxpayers or their agents by telephone:

• payments on account;
• outstanding amounts of tax, etc;
• repayments awaiting issue; and
• tax liabilities included in pay as you earn tax codes.

Contact Centres

In addition to the normal ‘business by telephone’ services as outlined, taxpayers whose affairs are dealt with by a Contact Centre, or their agents, can make the following self-assessment tax return amendments by a telephone call to the relevant Contact Centre:

• amendments to personal allowances;
• certain amendments to the employment pages of the return (for example, deductions or expenses, income or benefits in kind, and the correction of provisional or incorrect figures); and
• Correction of personal or employment details.

Amendments made by a trustee, personal representative or partner acting in that capacity must be made in writing. Taxpayers or agents can also ask the Revenue to deal with the following:

• repayment of overpaid tax (where the request was omitted from the original return);
• inclusion of tax liabilities in employee tax codes for the forthcoming year; and
• reductions in payments on account.

Claims and tax return amendments made by telephone are subject to the same statutory time limits as those made in writing. Claims and elections by telephone can only be made for the current or following year.