Tax Investigations
Ackland Webb Accountants
Having your tax affairs investigated by HMRC can be confusing, exhausting and unsettling. If you’ve received a tax enquiry from HMRC, we’ll advise you every step of the way to make sure you know exactly what’s going to happen and what you need to do.
Advice and reassurance throughout your tax investigation
Every year, HMRC investigates the tax affairs of a number of individuals and companies. These can be full enquiries, which are in-depth investigations into the subject’s financial affairs. Or they can be ‘aspect’ enquiries, which focus on a specific aspect of the subject’s tax return or accounts. Any type of tax can be investigated, including corporation tax, VAT, PAYE, income tax, Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) tax and inheritance tax (IHT). An enquiry may be instigated at random, because of unusual entries on a tax return or because of whistle blowing.
Such enquiries can be expensive, time-consuming and stressful. They can be triggered if HMRC suspects you have unpaid taxes – based on information held by them or another government department, or by conflicting information on social media. They can also be the result of a whistle-blower report, or a report from a member of the public. Or, they can be entirely random. HMRC has been known to pick businesses at random to investigate.
If you have received an enquiry for a tax investigation, we recommend that you ask an advisor to assist you with it. They can be complex, and the last thing you want is to damage your business’s reputation or end up with a huge fine that you can’t manage.
We have extensive experience in dealing with a wide range of HMRC enquiries and can help with yours – even if we weren’t involved with the accounts, tax return, VAT return or PAYE return being challenged by HMRC. Whatever the situation, we’ll advise you on what you can expect from the investigation, so that you can prepare and plan appropriately.
When you hire Ackland Webb Accounting to help with your tax investigation, you get Tax Enquiry Fee Protection cover as standard. This protects you against the potentially high accountancy costs of handling tax enquiries and compliance checks – costs that you would otherwise have to pay, even if HMRC doesn’t find any additional tax that you owe.
If you would like to discuss how we might assist you with tax investigations, please contact us for a no-obligation initial meeting.
"The initial response to the first HMRC letter can set the tone for the entire process, so it is critical to get this right."
