I have a claimant who has two self employed business that are not related and who up to now has submitted separate accounts to us.

In addition following a recent tribunal hearing in which our decision to use the accounting periods for one of his businesses was upheld and in the hearing touched on the issue of separate businesses and our decision not to allow offsetting of one bsuiness aganist another. This too was upheld albeit as a part of the process of addressing the assessment on accounting periods.

Following the hearing our claimant has now changed his trading names of the two businesses in to one new one and has confirmed in writing that no other change to business practices has occured. I have viewed this alteration as one to cleary offset one business account with another especially as the tribunal discussed this matter and agreed that we were corerect to assess the businesses separately.

Apart from the regulation not allowing the offsetting of one business loss against another does anyone have any suggestions for a more general regulation that refers to altering their (self employed) circumstances in order to obtain more benefit ? Or do you think that the alteration is allowable ? Or considering the recent and previous details we should pursue the offsetting route ?

Your experience and comments would be greatly appreciated?

I have heard of this sort of thing, but, never dealt with one myself.

Nobody yet, on a case, I have dealt with, has stated "actually these two businesses are one (and always have been)".

I cannot help with a more "general" regulation however if the two streams of self-employment are "linked" I could be persuaded to treat them as one business (probably not what you wanted to hear).

I would look to treat them as two separate businesses, as you feel is "right", if there is no definable link.

You seem to be heading along the lines of a "false statement" for want of a better term, you may wish to discuss this with your investigation team if this is what you feel your customer is doing.

This depends on your interpretation of your case, how you show that your claimant is saying what they are saying is, somehow, fraudulent/untrue is something I cannot help with; you have not said what the businesses are but have decided that they are unconnected.

I'm not convinced that a discussion board should be used to debate whether or not a claim may be fraudulent - if nothing else the claimant may be identifiable and he/she is fully entitled to the utmost confidentiality.

I can't (and wouldn't) comment on this case other that to say that as a freelance myself, I can see that in certain situations, changing a business name and/or merging two businesses can be a perfectly acceptable business practice (if nothing else reduces the hassle and cost of runing two sets of accounts). Equally there can be stuations where for legitimate business or tax planning purposes one might choose to split one's business activities.

If you speak to an accountant who advises SMEs, you'll find that this is not uncommon.