Friday, November 24, 2017

Why do HMRC pursue odd tax cases?

Years ago I recall discussing HMRC prosecution policy with a senior official. He mentioned an occasion when he had lost a case and went back to his legal advisers to find out what had gone wrong.

"I thought you'd told me you thought we had a very strong case", he said. "So why did we lose?"

"Aha" said the lawyer, "You asked me what I thought and I told you that I felt that we had a very strong case. That was all you wanted to know. 

Had you asked I'd have told you that I also thought the other side had a very strong case too."

Are all accountants....?

When you start searching in Google you may have noticed that it often offers to complete your search string.  In effect the system recognise...