DMBM512300 - Customer contact and data security: contact with third parties: company officers and representatives - wages clerks, cheque signatories, book keepers and so on

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Companies

It is always difficult when contacting a company to know who you can and can’t speak to because often each company is run differently and in some you may find it easy to speak to a director and some larger ones its very difficult.

You may also find due to their individual set up that some companies expect you to speak to the ‘book keeper’’ or ‘’wages clerk’’ or ‘’check signatory’ and you’ll find that the actual directors know very little about the practicalities of their responsibilities with regard to tax, whereas in others the owners of the company would not want their staff to know about debts owed to HMRC. You must therefore be very careful who you speak to when contacting a company.

Owners and representatives of the company

Obviously you can discuss the tax affairs of the company with the director or owner of the company and you must always attempt to speak to them first when you make outbound or outdoor calls, but as well as that there are certain people who we deem to be official representatives of the company and therefore we can discuss the tax affairs with them too, these are either the

• company secretary
• company accountant.

You must not discuss the tax affairs of the company with anyone else but the owners/directors or the company secretary or accountants, unless you have prior consent from one of these people, for the different types of consent, see DMBM511620.

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