Advisers demand more self-assessment guides
The Inland Revenue has dispatched self-assessment information packs to more than 70,000 registered tax agents. But while advisers have welcomed the booklets and information guide as extremely helpful, the Revenue has refused to send more than one of the inch-thick guides to each registered firm of tax practitioners on grounds of cost.
Ernst & Young senior manager Jonathan Bruce attacked the decision as ‘ludicrous’. He said: ‘We have 450 personal tax advisers who need copies.
The Revenue has agreed to give us another two as a special concession, but it’s still nowhere near enough.’
Clark Whitehill tax partner Mark Lee said the colour-coded guide, which contains copies of all explanatory material going to taxpayers with their self-assessment return next April, was ‘invaluable’. ‘They are easy to read, but not to follow. That’s because of the inherent complexity of the tax system.’
But he added: ‘To give one guide to each registered firm is fine if you are a sole practitioner. But if we were to copy it, our photocopier would be busy for days. And it will lose all the colour coding which would defeat the purpose.’
Bruce added: ‘If all our advisers have to work from a sheaf of photocopied notes, it will be very difficult to follow. It harks back to the earliest self-assessment forms sent out for consultation which were awful.’
Lee suggested that one possible solution for tax advisers in large firms would be for them to re-register as new agents in their own name. That way they would receive their own copies of all colour-coded Revenue literature.
