Calling all restaurant owners

News: June 2011

Calling all restaurant owners

HMRC has announced the use of specialist teams to focus on particular trades and areas in the near future.

The first such task-force will target those in the restaurant trade, beginning with those in London before covering Scotland and North West England. This new approach is clearly an attempt to use HMRC’s resources more effectively in their continuous quest to collect more tax (not forgetting of course that their real role is to make sure a taxpayer pays the right amount of tax – no more and no less).

The danger is a possible gung ho approach which makes unwarranted assumptions. If you are in this trade we really should be having a good look at your business records to make sure all is well and that HMRC, in their haste, do not come to the wrong conclusions from a cursory examination of your records.