CH840300 - Agent operational guidance: poor agent behaviour: agent's behaviour, although legal, gives HMRC cause for concern: resistance to attending meetings
This page and chapter are under review as the relevant content is also published in the technical guidance chapters of the Compliance Handbook, within Compliance checks factsheets and in Compliance checks guidance. If you use particular pages regularly, please email hmrcmanualsteam@hmrc.gov.uk to let us know the specific content you find useful.
Meetings can actually reduce the costs and length of a check, because so much more can be covered at a meeting than in prolonged correspondence.
Agents sometime consider that their clients’ interests are best served by declining to bring their client to a meeting. This is perfectly legal and does not necessarily mean the client has anything to hide, but it results in a level of engagement which is unnecessarily adversarial and less than desirable in a professional ‘Working Together’ relationship.
You should be careful to check that an objection to a meeting is not as a result of mobility issues. If it is, you should try and find an alternative approach such as arranging to meet at a suitable venue of the customer’s or agent’s choosing.
Although meetings can be extremely helpful in shortening or resolving a check we have no powers to insist on a meeting. EM1820 provides more information about preparing for and holding meetings.