Clearances pilot - an update

HMRC’s clearances pilot began on 2 January 2008. Pilot customers are:

• business customers in the General Retailing sector whose tax affairs are handled by the Large Business Service (LBS); and
• business customers, across all sectors, whose tax affairs are handled by offices within the North West & Midlands group of Local Compliance (LC).

Pilot customers should use the draft business clearance guidance that brings together information from Code of Practice 10 (COP10) and VAT notice 700/6 and which has been drafted in consultation with business advisors and representative bodies.

Our earlier announcement on the pilot in November gave further details about which customers fall within the North West & Midlands group. If you require further information or advice please telephone your local office. Customers in the General Retailing sector for the LBS will have been contacted by their Client Relationship Managers about the pilot.

The pilot is open for business customers – whether or not incorporated - who are seeking HMRC’s view of the tax consequences of transactions that are commercially significant to their business. Such clearance applications would have previously been made under the terms of COP10 or VAT notice 700/6. Statutory clearances should continue to be sent to existing contacts (PDF 79K).

LBS customers within the pilot sector should continue to send their clearance applications to their Client Relationship Manager.

LC customers who fall within the North West & Midlands group should send their clearance applications to a central point. Any applications you wish to make can now be made.

The email and address for LC customers to send applications to:

HMRC Clearances Team
21 Alexander House
Victoria Avenue
Southend-on-Sea
Essex SS99 1BD

Email: HMRC Clearances Team

The pilot will run to 31 March 2008. We are evaluating the pilot to ensure the extended clearances service, and HMRC’s processes and guidance relating to that service, are effective in improving certainty and consistency where they are most needed for our business customers. As part of this we will be reviewing the nature of the clearances sought, overall take-up of the extended regime, and the resources HMRC is able to deploy, to ensure that the regime when implemented in full from April 2008 best meets the objective of providing businesses with certainty and consistency.

We would particularly welcome comments you may have on the guidance, which will be kept in draft form throughout the pilot in order to allow for constant development.

Comments can be sent to:

Emma Bailey
Tax Administration Policy
Central Policy
100 Parliament Street
SW1A 2BQ

We are also asking an external research company to undertake interviews with a sample of customers to help us in our evaluation of the quality of the clearances process.