Readers will be interested, and gratified to hear that HMRC will always treat you as honest. The following is an extract from HMRC’s “Your Charter” which states:
Your rights – What you can expect from us:
- Respect you
- Help and support you to get things right
- Treat you as honest
- Treat you even-handedly
- Be professional and act with integrity
- Tackle people who deliberately break the rules and challenge those who bend the rules
- Protect your information and respect your privacy
- Accept that someone else can represent you
- Do all we can to keep the cost of dealing with us as low as possible
Your obligations – What we expect from you:
- Be honest
- Respect our staff
- Take care to get things right.
Considering that we have one of the most complex tax systems, HMRC seems to have set itself and the nation’s tax payers a high bar to clear. Compliance with a known legal obligation is one thing, compliance with an unknown legal obligation is quite another.