Contractors should expect a totally different customer experience following the launch of the HMRC Charter. According to the document, also known as the Taxpayers’ Charter, you should expect respect and that HMRC will ‘treat you as honest’.
Whether the charter is merely HMRC’s attempt to be seen to be doing the right thing or a genuine attempt to reinvent itself as a customer-centric organisation remains to be seen. However, if the latter, then the charter could signal a major reversal in how contractors have traditionally been treated by HMRC.
However, it would also entail a huge cultural shift on the part of individual tax inspectors and HMRC departments, and is unlikely to be embraced without contractors and other taxpayers challenging HMRC to stick to the terms of its new charter.
Improving contractor-taxman relationships
In his latest podcast, Dave Hartnett, permanent secretary for tax, says that the charter is designed to “improve the relationship between HMRC and our customers…[and]…make it easier for individuals and businesses to interact with HMRC.”
It is also a key signpost and safeguard for taxpayers, particularly for those who do not have advisers, according to John Whiting, Tax Policy Director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT). “The Charter is an important step forward in relations between taxpayers and the taxman and will help people in their dealings with HMRC,” he says.
The Charter is an important step forward in relations between taxpayers and the taxman and will help people in their dealings with HMRC
John Whiting, Chartered Institute of Taxation
Contractors’ rights
The four-page charter includes a nine-point plan, which enshrines taxpayers’ rights and says you can expect HMRC to:
- 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 it can to keep the cost of dealing with it as low as possible.
If you are currently undergoing an investigation, the charter should have immediate impact because, as Hartnett explains, he is “taking steps to ensure all of our staff are aware of the contents of the charter.”
Contractors’ obligations
Unlike most customer charters you get from service providers, HMRC has also included a list of obligations it expects contractors to observe:
- Be honest
- Respect our staff
- Take care to get things right.
The charter’s implementation and enforcement will be overseen by a Charter Advisory Committee formed of tax specialists, including CIOT’s Whiting. They have been charged with ensuring that HMRC is sticking to its own rules.
Contractors can exercise their rights
In addition to HMRC being overseen by the Charter Advisory Committee, contractors and other taxpayers will be able to complain directly to HMRC if they feel it is not providing an adequate service or is failing to adhere to the charter. Hartnett promises that each case will be dealt with on its individual merits and action taken where necessary.
The charter is a key element of the HMRC Vision, in which HMRC claims ‘our customers will feel that the tax system is simple for them and even-handed, and we will be seen as a highly professional and efficient organisation’.