EM3836 - Concluding an Enquiry: SA Legislation: What does not constitute a Closure Notice

Where the taxpayer and agent will not co-operate, or are only providing intermittent or partial co-operation, you may have to arrive at your own figure for what the self assessment should be, on the basis of the information you have obtained.

Exploratory negotiations may take place at a stage when you have not completed all aspects of your enquiry. Indeed the negotiations may themselves reveal the need for further enquiries to clarify the facts. In the course of such negotiations, you may put informal proposals to the taxpayer and outline the resultant tax effect (for example, by enclosing a computation). If you do the taxpayer cannot argue that the letter comprises a partial or final closure notice as you will not have included all the elements necessary for a partial or final closure notice, in particular you will not have stated that your enquiry is completed into any matter.

If you feel there may be any doubt or future problems, you should state clearly that the letter is not a partial or final closure notice.

Since a partial or final closure notice must be issued to the taxpayer, it should not be possible for anything addressed to the taxpayer’s agent to be construed as such a notice.