This week's opinion: 10 March 2022

One of the Taxation team received an email from HMRC this week at her work address saying that she had been identified as somebody whose business may be affected by the notification of uncertain treatment legislation and inviting her to a webinar. Needless to say she doesn’t have such a business. I gather from social media posts that she was not the only recipient of the email for whom it was completely irrelevant. 

Coincidentally, when she told me about it, I was reading the Office of Tax Simplification’s report on the high income child benefit charge (HICBC) (tinyurl.com/otshicbcevnote), much of which is about HMRC communication with taxpayers who might be affected by the charge.

This leads to the interesting question of whether it is better to over-communicate or under-communicate. My colleague was surprised to get an irrelevant email, but no harm was done – although if she kept getting irrelevant emails she might think quite differently. Those who might be liable for the HICBC for the first time would surely appreciate personal communication, probably several times, so that they would not fall into the trap of building up tax liabilities they did not know about.

As anybody who has ever looked into effective communications knows, the key is getting the message to the right people at the right times, with suitable reinforcement of the message when necessary. Easier said than done, of course. Personally I think that it is better that HMRC over, rather than under-communicates but in an ideal world every communication should be tailored precisely to its intended audience. Technology should eventually permit this, but I fear it could be a long time coming.