CISR90010 - View Customer and Record Contact: introduction
This section serves as an introductory overview of taxpayer records: for deeper coverage select the appropriate entry from the opening menu at CISR90000.
Action guides
The guidance provided in this chapter describes the function ‘View Customer’ and the information displayed to you in the various windows in this function and how to access them. There is only one ‘Action guide’ which is at CISR90610 which describes how to record a contact.
General
Self-Assessment (SA) records for sole traders and partnerships are owned by the processing office responsible for the taxpayer's SA record. COTAX records for companies are owned by the relevant compliance office. However, no individual office 'owns' the records within CIS. Instead, they are centrally pooled in the CIS database and access is available to all authorised users, regardless of where they are located.
Retaining taxpayers' paper records
- Application forms should be kept permanently, even if superseded, to provide compliance sections with information in case of later problems. This covers forms CIS301, CIS302, CIS304 & CIS305.
- CIS40 & CIS41 should be kept for the enquiry window.
- (This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)
More details on the retention of paper records can be found in CISR18180.
CIS Computer records
The CIS system, which supports the administration of the Scheme, contains the bulk of the information on the customer.
Taxpayer records on the CIS system can be created provided there is, first of all, an SA or COTAX record carrying the UTR of the customer.
Once the record is set up, it is filled largely with information drawn over from the 'parent' SA or COTAX record. In the case of taxpayers acting as contractors, information is also drawn from the BROCS system. Access to the record is by reference to the customer's UTR, NINO or AO Reference.
The information drawn from other systems needs to be maintained through the parent system. It is most important that it is kept up to date since, for example, important scheme documents will be sent to the address stored on the CIS system.
This section of the guidance deals with general information held on the system for contractors and subcontractors in the ‘View Customer' windows.
Information held on the customer in their role as a contractor in the scheme starts at CISR90030.
Information held on the customer in their role as a subcontractor in the scheme starts at CISR90110.
