Perhaps one of the differences would be licence type? An instructor with a CPL may be considered to be less likely to be deriving pleasure from the flying and, as a commercial pilot with a qualification specifically designed to earn money from flying, it may be considered that currency is not an issue.
The same however, might not be considered with a PPL holding pilot. So, in these cases, it would be interesting to know the licence type.
Whirly, I don't want to sound impolite but am I right in that you might be a trainee or junior accountant, or perhaps somebody working on the periphery of the profession? But probably not somebody who routinely works with corporate clients well above the builder/decorator grade, working with them in their various run-ins with the Revenue and C&E?
What you wrote, about not being allowed to have fun when running a business, and having to get a CPL to avoid the accusation of enjoying flying, is an absolute scream although I am sure you did not mean it that way. It cuts to the heart of the way the Revenue think. If they had their way, they would shut down (or stick extra tax on) any business whose proprietor is (or looks like he is) enjoying himself.
I've been in business (manufacturing) for many years so inevitably have picked up quite a lot of bits and pieces on legal and financial matters. One cannot run successfully without that knowledge; one cannot get anywhere while sticking all receipts into a bin liner and then chucking it at an accountant to sort out at the year end like many builders etc do.
But the more I hear about this case, and others, the more I discover that the rules are actually very vague, that the Revenue quite literally doesn't like the idea of anybody getting enjoyment out of their business, that politics of envy is very much alive and kicking here, that some inspectors are way out of line and get away with it only because their targets eventually cut a deal, and they attack certain types of businesses with great gusto hoping to get a settlement of some sort which doesn't have to bear any relation to the facts of the case.
As Justiciar points out most targets of enquiries or investigations do a private deal with their local inspector. Hardly suprising since the next step outside the Revenue apparatus is the High Court which costs four figures plus per day and only the biggest players (say, some dispute over the tax treatment on £100M's worth of a certain type of biscuit you have been making for the last 10 years) will bother.
This "make the target sh1t himself for a few months and then throw him a last minute deal" policy so much beloved of the present day Revenue ensures that few clear national rules come into the public domain. It's all very well for some people to pontificate that "one can immediately tell if a business is a sham" etc etc but actually one can't do that except in the most obvious cases, and the Revenue do not restrict themselves to those, by a very long way.
Of the tax evaders, only a mug is going to run an obvious sham. Everybody else will be more clever at it, and is going to be very close to something bona fide. So the Revenue can pick a lot of real businesses apart. Whereas if he had clear published rules then everybody would know what is allowed and what is not.
Finally, if "you" earn £10k p.a. then it's quite possible that "you" regard anybody earning say £100k p.a. (and flying a plane too
) as a crook who "must be" running a sham business. That is very much a feature of the present-day British mentality, too.
That's my bit for defence of private enterprise
