IHTM29011 - Enquiries: summary

There is an important distinction to be made between enquiry ( IHTM29012) work (compliance) and account amendment ( IHTM08012) work (enabling).

Most people are prepared to pay the correct amount of tax when it is due. We aim to minimise the number who don’t by helping people to get their tax right, either through education or providing helpful advice. This enabling work is dealt with in PC&S.

But at the same time we need to detect and tackle wilful non-compliance so that we deter those who seek to cheat the system. This work is dealt with in Compliance as an enquiry. Enquiry work is carried out in Compliance to investigate an identified area of risk of tax loss. Enquiry cases will be those where the risk assessors have decided that we need to

• question the veracity of one or more aspects of an account
• identify omissions from an account
• ask for an account to be submitted where this has not been done within the time limit and we have information that suggests a tax charge arises