The pilot will encompass business customers in the Retail sector whose tax affairs are handled by the Large Business Service and business customers, across all sectors, whose tax affairs are handled by offices within the North West & Midlands group of Local Compliance.

For these businesses, HMRC will

• – remove the four Finance Act restrictions that direct tax clearance applications were subject to under Code of Practice 10 (COP10),
• – ask them to demonstrate the commercial significance of the transaction where the clearance relates to direct tax legislation older than the last four years, and
• – respond within 28 calendar days, “as the norm”

in advance of the full implementation of the clearances proposal around Budget 2008.

Further information is available at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/largecompanies/clearance-pilot.html.