Personal Tax Investigations

The powers of HM Revenue & Customs continue to grow, as do their campaigns targeting certain groups of individuals.

All too frequently, compliant taxpayers find themselves caught up in the net and suddenly subjected to the full impact of an HMRC tax enquiry.

Even when the enquiry concludes that all is in order, the process can take a considerable toll.

If you’re being investigated

If you find yourself in the spotlight, we can help guide you through the investigation. We have former HMRC inspectors in our team who will use their understanding of the Revenue’s approach for your benefit.

Protecting yourself

We believe the low number of HMRC enquiries our clients receive bears testimony to the quality of our tax compliance work. The majority of the enquiries we deal with result in no adjustment being required to the originally submitted tax returns. For those cases where an adjustment is required we are in most instances able to negotiate a satisfactory result for our clients and help keep penalties to a minimum.

Of course, ensuring that your tax affairs are completely compliant is key.   However, even demonstrating compliance once you’re being investigated can eat up time and potentially incur additional costs. We offer our clients Professional Fee Protection to cover those additional costs so that they don’t have that to contend with these on top of the disruption of the enquiry.

How we’ve Helped:

• HMRC investigated a successful business owner over the private use of company assets. The amounts of tax HMRC claimed were due were so large as to threaten the continuing viability of the business. The investigation lasted over a year, but we successfully got the Inspector to close it with no tax payable.
• The Stamp Office rejected a property developer client’s SDLT return for the purchase of a development site saying that a much higher figure of SDLT was due. The Inspector refused to listen to our arguments, but we were confident our case was technically sound and got the matter overturned in our client’s favour by requesting a statutory review.
• An individual business owner asked for our help having been involved with an HMRC enquiry lasting over 4 years with no sign of settlement. We acted as arbitrator between the business owner and HMRC and were able to bring the matter to a close within a short space of time enabling the business owner to put the matter behind them.
• An individual property investor was investigated by HMRC in connection with an unusual and complicated property sale. We examined all of the background to the transaction and were able to explain to HMRC the correct treatment of the different elements of the deal which resulted in them accepting that no tax was due.
• Helped a family business reach a favourable settlement with HMRC having gone unwisely into a risky tax scheme.

Thanks to Goodman Jones, a long running investigation by HMRC has been resolved to my extreme satisfaction with a complete withdrawal and agreement that there was no tax to pay.

Before this resolution, I had found the investigation to be incredibly disruptive and stressful. It would have been even more so but for the care and attention to the case from Goodman Jones throughout the process, which was exemplary.

The original tax advice was proven to be accurate, but the support I received from the whole GJ team was much more than that. Right from the start they were committed to my cause. The tax investigations insurance that they put in place certainly helped considerably with the additional work that was required. Their attention to detail, determination, doggedness and tenacity enabled them to demonstrate compliance with international requirements which was a key turning point in our favour. 

They really couldn’t have done more to look out for me and I’m delighted with the outcome.