TTOG11735 - - Civil Investigation of Fraud (Code 9): historical record: reporting denials and non-co-operation

We need to measure denial and non cooperation cases in order to monitor the impact that legislative and policy changes have on CIF’s effectiveness.

Denials, in most cases, will be evident from the tax payer’s response to the CIF formal questions. As a rule of thumb, if it is inappropriate to invite a Disclosure Report in line with SCIG05730 the case should be reported as a denial.

Non Cooperation generally falls into two categories;

  • delay or poor quality disclosures due to inexperience, lack of resource or capability on the agent’s part, or because the taxpayer is unwilling or unable to meet the professional cost involved.
  • Deliberate non engagement with the policy because either the inducement to do so or the sanction for not doing so is inadequate.

It is the latter category that needs to be reported. Practical pointers to whether an individual is co-operating with the process include:-

  • Is there agreement to attend an opening meeting within a reasonable space of time?
  • If not, are there legitimate reasons for this and is the taxpayer co-operating with the process nevertheless i.e. by post?
  • Whether or not a disclosure has been made, has the taxpayer answered number 5 of the direct taxes formal questions “Yes”?
  • If there is no disclosure, has the taxpayer provided all necessary mandates and access to business/private records that we have (reasonably) asked for?
  • If the taxpayer has made a disclosure and a report has been commissioned, are we satisfied (via scoping and regular progress meetings) that there is full engagement by the taxpayer and that a work schedule is in place that is commensurate with the deadline date for the report.
  • If the report has not been submitted by the agreed deadline, are we satisfied that this is for reasons outside the control of the taxpayer.

We need to know what percentage of current registrations are denials or non engagement cases so at each quarter end please report;

  1. Total number of open cases
  2. The total number of denial/non engagement cases within a)

We also need to be able to identify trends quickly so on a cumulative “year to date” basis please report

  1. The number of cases registered since the previous 1 April
  2. The number of denial/non engagement cases in c)