Tax Investigations – Increased threats from HMRC

HM Revenue & Customs were granted new far-reaching powers in April 2009 and your business is more at risk than ever before.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) can now:

• Inspect business premises
• Request information before a tax enquiry
• Inspect multiple taxes simultaneously
• Issue harsher penalties for non compliance

A tax enquiry is a harrowing experience which can be costly and time consuming but the right defence helps to ensure that you can fight the Revenue on an equal footing. Too many taxpayers are forced to accept unreasonable demands from the Revenue as the costs of proper representation are too high. Our Tax Investigations Service is designed to reimburse the costs of our professional fees in the event clients are investigated by HMRC.

HMRC believes that there is a £40billion ‘tax gap’ between what they collect and what is due to them and the Revenue has been tasked to reduce this by £7billion by 2011(*). In addition HMRC are targeting various professions including medical professionals and lawyers to increase the ‘tax take’(**).

We believe this activity will continue in order to reduce the deficit in the Treasury’s funds and if you are selected for enquiry, the investigation process will require significant professional support.

Our Service

As a result, given that HMRC are now increasingly moving towards inspecting all 3 tax heads simultaneously and the increased costs this will incur, we believe our Tax Investigations Service represents excellent value for money and we strongly recommend that all clients subscribe. Please remember that enquiries can be chosen at random and typically a thorough defence can cost several thousands of pounds.

If you have any questions about the Service or would like to subscribe, please cotact us

(*) Protecting Tax Revenues 2009 HMRC
(**) The Sunday Times 17th January 2010