SIOG6545 | Investigation work: interviews with third parties: conduct of third party meeting generally

In all cases when meeting third parties we should show our ID card. Sometimes at business premises third parties ask to photocopy an Investigator’s ID card. This is acceptable as taxpayers may have legitimate concerns about bogus callers.

We must never misrepresent ourselves when contacting third parties to obtain information or documents. We need not disclose that we are HMRC officers when seeking publicly available information or documents, but when we contact third parties for non-publicly available information or documents whether by letter, telephone or at a meeting we must always properly identify ourselves. Anything obtained in other circumstances will have been obtained unprofessionally and could result in a complaint being made about the officer’s behaviour.