Customs are aware that a great deal of the information to which they have access is of a confidential nature. Information relating to goods or services, or to the supply, acquisition or importation. As part of their services to clients, tax advisers communicate with clients or other tax advisers for the purpose of giving or obtaining opinion or advice from clients' past or future VAT affairs. Such communication can include notes of meetings and telephone calls, internal memoranda, letters and faxes and management letters. Depending on their content, such communications may or may not be subject to Customs statutory powers of access.
Customs recognise that tax advisers have a duty of confidentiality to their clients.
Whilst the duty of confidentiality may sometimes be over-ridden by legal requirements, Customs will not normally request the tax adviser or the trader to produce a communication relating to confidential opinion or advice of the type described above. In those cases where a document, such as a management letter or an auditor's working papers, contains both information of the type set out under Information Relating to Goods or Services and advice of the type set out under Confidential Advice, Customs will normally accept an extract from the document, supported by a written statement from the tax adviser or auditor that in his opinion Customs do not have the power to see the other part or parts of the document. The extract would include information about the origin of figures in accounts and returns and other information submitted to Customs, or the relationship of those figures with the books and records of the trader. In this context, tax advisers might find it beneficial when corresponding with clients to distinguish between the information set out under Information Relating to Goods or Services and confidential advice, perhaps sending separate correspondence depending on the category into which they consider the material falls. In some instances Customs may request access to material to which they consider they may not have statutory power of access.