Frequently asked questions

Two things no document base gives you: the method, and the know-how that applies it. The connector does not stack texts — it knows how to work them: walking a classification down the schedule in the order of the rules, computing at the date that governs, running a procedure with its clocks, drafting a filing to the trade’s standards. That craft is built into the connectors, behind two locks: nothing is asserted without a dated source, and where the record holds nothing the connector says so. The record is the matter; the method makes the value.

From the official record, read on the page rather than recalled from memory. Gladstone Customs works the UK Integrated Tariff at ten digits — 17,134 lines, Great Britain and Northern Ireland served as two columns and never blended — alongside the customs statute and its instruments, and HMRC’s customs notices and manuals. Gladstone Tax & Law works the charging Acts at their vintage: 22,644 sections of Acts and 1,821 regulations, 34,715 pages of HMRC manuals and notices, 3,839 treaty articles drawn from 172 jurisdictions, and 49,195 court and tribunal decisions held in full text — Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, Upper and First-tier Tribunals — weighted by court. Every substantive statement carries its reference — the tariff line, the section, the manual page, the treaty article, the decision.

The record lives on the connector’s side: nothing to install, nothing to patch, and the address never changes. Consolidations are kept current, and the vintaged material runs 2019 to 2026, so a question dated 2021 is read on the 2021 text and says so. Amendments passed but not yet in force are served as pending, not as law in force. The sources are swept on a weekly and monthly cycle, according to how each publisher issues. State the date that governs your matter — the date of the declaration, the chargeable event, or the tax year — and the version served is the one that date commands.

No, and the record never lets the two blur. Notices and manuals are served labelled as guidance and cited at their own date: they state the department’s published position, which is worth citing as such, but they are not the enacted text. Where guidance and statute diverge, the answer says which is which and cites both. Guidance is guidance, never the law.

No. Gladstone is a research aid for professionals: it reads and cites the official record, and it drafts for review. It creates no solicitor-client, accountant-client or agent-client relationship, and the duty of care on a declaration or a return stays with the trader, the agent of record and the practitioner. Each citation is given so it can be checked against the official publication, which prevails. The full frame is in the Terms.

None. Gladstone is a connector: an address added once, inside the assistant you already use. In Claude it works wherever your plan supports custom connectors — claude.ai in the browser, Claude Desktop, and the mobile apps. In ChatGPT the same address is added under Settings → Connectors (Developer mode on once via Settings → Apps → Advanced settings), and it works there just the same. Added once, it follows you; this site is only the front door, and the work happens in your conversation.

Three steps, no more. First, pick your side on the Connect page: customs or tax. Second, add the connector — one click on “Add to Claude”, or paste the address into Claude’s or ChatGPT’s connector settings. Third, work dated: ask the question, state the date of the declaration or the tax year, attach the technical sheet or the assessment — and the answer comes back with the tariff line, the section or the decision it stands on.

The connectors have the assistant read long statutory passages, walk classification trees and follow life chains, and that reading rewards a capable model. Claude Opus 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol (or newer) do the best work; lighter models will answer, with less patience for long texts.

Not today. The connectors are open: adding one asks for no account here, no key and no payment, and the only sign-in involved is the Claude or ChatGPT one you already use. The connectors hold no user records of their own. If the terms of access change, they will be published on this site before they take effect.

Yes: one connector per domain, one address each. They sit side by side without interfering, and both can be added. Customs agents tend to start with Customs, tax practitioners with Tax & Law; a practice that touches trade will want both on the shelf.

On the Connect page: both addresses in full, each with a copy button and an “Add to Claude” link, and the settings path for ChatGPT beside them. The step-by-step guides for Gladstone Customs and Gladstone Tax & Law walk the same ground screen by screen.

Your conversations live in your Claude or ChatGPT workspace and are governed by Anthropic’s or OpenAI’s own policies; the publisher of Gladstone cannot see them and receives no copy. What reaches a connector is the lookups the assistant issues while consulting the record — a search phrase, a section number, a date — processed to return the requested texts. Since the connectors hold no user records, those lookups arrive with no identity attached. The Privacy Policy sets all of this out.

Rarely a need. A documentary question works perfectly well on anonymous facts — “an importer brings LED luminaires in from China…” — and professional prudence says to leave out nominative details the question does not need: the law does not change with the client’s name. On the other side of the ledger, the sources themselves are open: legislation and HMRC guidance are Crown material reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0, and tribunal decisions under the Open Justice Licence, in each case with attribution and with the coverage of the case record stated.