Lee Sharpe warns that HMRC regularly demands records and information to which it is not entitled.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has powers to request information reasonably required to check a taxpayer’s ‘tax position’ (FA 2008, Sch 36). Here, ‘tax position’ includes any past, current or even future tax liability, penalties, claims or elections.
There are constraints on HMRC’s use of these powers, although one might hardly know it in practice. It is commonly said that HMRC works on the basis that ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get’.
Let’s consider these constraints in a typical scenario, where an established business receives a Sch 36 notice including a list of documents, etc., covering a business’ affairs, ostensibly required for a year under enquiry (and years preceding that), for which the taxpayer has submitted a tax return. In
