ACCA welcomes the opportunity to respond to HMRC on R&D tax relief advance clearances and provide the following summary response, our responses to individual questions follow:
- Trust lies at the heart of a healthy relationship between a tax authority and the taxpayers and agents who interact with it. A lack of investment has, over time, damaged relationships between HMRC, compliant taxpayers, and the agents supporting them, with service standards at HMRC falling to an unacceptably low standard.
- We value the role we play in supporting the operation and development of the HMRC Charter. It is a useful tool to ensure continuous improvement, with independent scrutiny a key part of its success.
- We believe that HMRC should recognise the value of timesaving and trust that professional body regulated agents provide. In relation to R&D we believe that HMRC should restrict R&D claims to professional body regulated agents in order to minimise error and fraud in submissions. We believe this would:
- improve the quality of submissions
- reduce fraud and error
- provide timesaving to HMRC and reduce the number of post-submission claims that have to be reviewed.
To read our response in full, please download the consultation document found on this page.
