|
This issue arose recently with regards to another thread. The compliance manual is there to define procedures in cases where the Revenue is unclear whether a claim or an award etc is correct. Parts of the manual refer to activity that may suggest fraud, for example, the matter of penalties and interest to be charged in cases where claimant may have supplied incorrect information, or when they want to carry out surveillance etc.
However, several parts of the manual have relevance generally. For example, the definition of when two people are to be treated as part of a couple (chapter 15), or cases where claimants do not respond adequately to requests for information from the Revenue (chapter 4 and 5). In neither of these scenarios is there a requirement that fraud is suspected, before the compliance manual can be used.
I suspect that the Revenue officers may sometimes distance themselves from the compliance manual because (i) they wrongly think its all about fraud, or (ii) they do not want to do something that the compliance manual suggests they should.
The May 2007 changes to the 'offset' rules were I think triggered because the Revenue were accused of inconsistency. Offset, a compliance based notion, was being used outside of compliance investigations, to mitigate some overpayments. The Revenue changed the rules in the face of the criticism, only to create another kind of unfairness to put in its place (now you can only use offset if there is a running compliance investigation). To make matters worse, the Parliamentary Ombudsman has failed to grasp this detrimental change in her otherwise groovy 'special report' on tax credits, out last month. The offset episode illustrates, I think, the difficult place that compliance has in the heart of the Revenue.
In my view, use the Compliance manual as a persuasive tool whenever the case permits. If the Revenue don't agree that it should be persuasive, maybe the Adjudicator or Ombudsman might, if the case has to go further.
Steve
|
