Filed under: enquiries
Do you have a gold card or executive membership for any clubs and services? Most clients will have experienced the slightly superior service they will be offered as a ‘high net worth’ customer. Almost every organisation is tailoring its services to suit the perceived value of the individual customer; it’s often wrapped up within the phrase ‘one-to-one’ marketing.
Keen not to miss the boat, HMRC also adopted a similar strategy to segmenting its ‘customers’ and the ‘service grade’ it provides when it originally launched the Affluent Compliance Team. This was set up in 2010 to carefully scrutinise the financial affairs of the wealthiest taxpayers in the UK and has recently been expanded as we will discuss.
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June 17, 2013
Earlier this month it was confirmed by HMRC that all UK overseas territories – The Cayman Islands, Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands – now have in place automatic tax disclosure deals with the Government. This means they are automatically exchanging financial information with the UK and France, Germany, Italy and Spain to identify taxpayers who are under-declaring their income.
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May 23, 2013
HMRC has recently turned its attentions to property owners and investors with the launch of new taskforces and initiatives to recover additional tax revenues. Firstly, aimed at buy-to-let landlords in the South East, HMRC currently has a taskforce monitoring the activities of landlords whose self assessment tax returns may not reflect the value of their property portfolios. If you have rental property and think you may have underpaid tax, please seek professional advice. This particular initiative is not accompanied by an opportunity for landlords to avoid penalties for outstanding tax owed and any declarations should be treated with caution to avoid further enquiries being opened. (more…)
April 9, 2013
Last week’s news was full of stories relating to major companies – Starbucks, Apple, Facebook and most recently, eBay – and the low tax bills they are able to sustain. Despite appearances what these organisations do to reduce their tax liabilities is perfectly legitimate, allowable under the transfer pricing rules. It is a valid tax planning strategy because for the most part, these multinational businesses have their European operations based in Ireland, where the rate of corporation tax is much lower. (more…)
October 24, 2012
As part of RJP’s ongoing analysis of new HMRC tax initiatives, we discuss the latest to potentially affect our clients. Two new HMRC anti-fraud campaigns are underway to collect additional revenues from taxpayers who have under-declared their income levels. (more…)
September 13, 2012
This year we have covered many of the tax amnesty initiatives launched by HMRC to recoup missing revenues from taxpayers. So far these initiatives, whereby people who voluntarily declare they have underpaid tax in return for receiving reduced penalties, have raised an additional £497m in revenues, with a further £3bn expected as a result of the Lichtenstein Disclosure Facility. Given the number of different taskforces and schemes ongoing, it is clear this is now a very important element of HMRC’s work.
HMRC’s latest scheme, the Self-Assessment Tax Amnesty, is aimed at higher rate taxpayers in the 40-50% tax bracket and has been the topic of much debate in the media over whether it is fair to everyone else. We will come to this later on, after explaining what the Self Assessment Amnesty is. (more…)
July 26, 2012
It has come to Taxtalk’s attention that HMRC has a new taskforce (specialist team to undertake investigations into compliance activity) briefed to address non-filing of tax returns across the South East. This is because they believe there is an increasing problem with some taxpayers not submitting statutory returns across Corporation Tax, Income Tax, Self Assessment, PAYE and VAT.
The Government is spending £900m as part of a re-investment scheme designed to tackle tax evasion, avoidance and fraud from 2011/12. In return it hopes to generate an additional £7 billion each year by 2014/15.
You can be sure that taxpayers found breaking the rules will be penalised heavily. HMRC are going to be targeting taxpayers that they believe have made a conscious decision not to submit the necessary declarations. Honest businesses have absolutely nothing to worry about.
If you are unsure about your tax or think you may have underpaid, our advice is to speak to a tax expert to find out your best course of action. RJP’s Anne Eager specialises in tax enquiries to ask her a question email [email protected]
December 15, 2011
It has come to our attention that HMRC have started issuing letters to UK customers of HSBC Switzerland requesting that they sign certain forms in respect of their tax affairs. These letters originate from the new Criminal Intelligence Group which is based out of Birmingham.
Recipients are being asked to respond by signing the forms before the 21st December deadline. Although the letter isn’t explicit, it’s quite likely that if you get one of these and do nothing, HMRC will launch a full investigation into your tax affairs.
Our advice to any clients or colleagues who get one of these letters is DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING without taking expert advice. If you are unsure and want some immediate advice about this, please do not hesitate to get in touch for a confidential, no cost and no obligation discussion.
You can email any of RJP’s partners, Lesley, Simon or Paul.
November 30, 2011
Whatever your circumstances it’s imperative to know what you should do if you have a tax shortfall to declare. The good news is that HMRC has several initiatives up and running aimed at helping you out; the bad news is that it is more determined than ever to crack down not just on tax evasion but on poor record keeping as well. (more…)
November 18, 2011
HMRC recently announced that since their pilot exercise was so successful they are going to extend their Business Records Checks programme. It was inevitable it would be deemed successful, ‘Record checks’ are effectively a euphemism for ‘getting fast access to accounts to check for tax shortfalls’.
The pilot programme involved visits to SMEs to ensure that their business records were adequate. Around 44 per cent of businesses visited had ‘issues’ with record-keeping, while around 12 per cent of those visited had seriously inadequate records. (more…)
October 14, 2011
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