A Yorkshire-based tax manager has challenged the Chancellor over what he has described as the HMRC’s aggressive approach towards companies struggling to pay up due to Covid.
Rishi Sunak told Selby’s Paul Rippon that he would look into the matter further, and respond, assuring him there had been no shift in policy.
The meeting was secured as the firm he is assistant tax manager at, Independent Tax, is working with several clients who have large arrears of taxes or duties, mostly as a legacy of the unprecedented pressures placed on their businesses by the pandemic.
Read more: £6m expansion plan outlined by high-growth East Yorkshire company named as top performer
Mr Rippon said: “I was lucky enough to be asked to meet with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, to discuss HMRC’s unprecedentedly aggressive approach to debt management.
“In each of these cases, a trigger happy HMRC is refusing to co-operate with their proposed payment terms and trying to impose incredibly challenging time limits on payments, which are simply unviable for them.
“The one consistent feature of all of these cases is that the clients are all making significant payments, running into tens of thousands of pounds, already. In other words, they are actively trying to work with HMRC to get in place payment plans that they can meet. Despite these genuine attempts, HMRC is rejecting all proposals with payment terms of more than 18 months, despite our clients offering all manner of guarantees.
“At our meeting, I was able to explain these concerns to the Chancellor and questioned whether HMRC has adopted a new approach that had not been communicated. The Chancellor explained that he was totally unaware of any shift in HMRC’s time to pay policy. I’m pleased that, as a result of our meeting, the Chancellor will take my concerns to HMRC to help us understand if and why this has happened.
“He assured me that he will come back to me and, whilst we are not so naive as to expect that the first response will provide an immediate solution, we do have the opportunity to reconvene our discussions once we have an answer from HMRC.
“That second meeting will be our opportunity to put the record straight on any misrepresentation that HMRC gives back to the Chancellor.”
Based at Brackenholme, near Selby in North Yorkshire, Independent Tax claims to be the largest tax dispute and HMRC-handling specialist in the North of England.
Gary Brothers, managing partner at Independent Tax, said: “This is another fantastic example of the innovative, front-foot way that we approach matters of HMRC regulation to help our clients. I’d like to congratulate Paul for always going above and beyond for our clients, as we all do here at Independent Tax.
“We’ve had a nasty batch of aggressive HMRC debt staff putting a huge amount of pressure on clients who want to pay but need more time. Their response has been to put their fingers in their ears and threaten these clients with winding up orders. Paul refused to let this lie and took it all the way to the top by inviting the Chancellor of the Exchequer to a meeting so that he could hear more about the issue.”
Do you follow BusinessLive Humber on LinkedIn and Twitter? Click to join the conversation.
