INLAND REVENUE VISITS/INVESTIGATIONS
At some stage during the life of your business Inland Revenue may wish to visit your office at random to inspect your records, or something may have been brought to their attention which requires further investigation. This could be an overall review of your accounting records, a VAT inspection, or a PAYE compliance review.
It is therefore essential that you keep proper accounting records during the year. Waiting until the end of your financial year is not acceptable, and Inland Revenue at any given time will expect to see up to date records of:
If records are not being kept to their satisfaction they may charge a compliance penalty up to £3,000 (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/record-keeping-checks-on-your-business). Tax investigations can be lengthy and take many months to complete. This can also leave you with accountancy bills of several thousand pounds.
HOW WE CAN HELP
We offer low cost Tax Investigation Insurance to our clients to protect them in the event of an HMRC investigation.
This enables us to to deal with Inland Revenue on your behalf, attend your office on the day of the inspection, and assist them with any queries they may have. All our charges incurred whilst assisting you should be covered by the Tax Investigation Insurance. Should any activities or assistance in the course of the investigation not be covered by the Insurance we would of course notify you before taking any further action.
If you are not an existing client, please see our section on bookkeeping to give you some ideas on how we can help you maintain accurate and compliant records. If you have already had a letter/call from Inland Revenue and your accounts are not up to date, please contact us as soon as possible as we may be able to help you collate your records before their visit.
At some stage during the life of your business Inland Revenue may wish to visit your office at random to inspect your records, or something may have been brought to their attention which requires further investigation. This could be an overall review of your accounting records, a VAT inspection, or a PAYE compliance review.
It is therefore essential that you keep proper accounting records during the year. Waiting until the end of your financial year is not acceptable, and Inland Revenue at any given time will expect to see up to date records of:
- All receipts and expenses
- What your receipts and expenses relate to, i.e. how they were incurred in the course of your normal business activities
- All transactions relating to dealing in goods
- PAYE records
- VAT records
If records are not being kept to their satisfaction they may charge a compliance penalty up to £3,000 (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/record-keeping-checks-on-your-business). Tax investigations can be lengthy and take many months to complete. This can also leave you with accountancy bills of several thousand pounds.
HOW WE CAN HELP
We offer low cost Tax Investigation Insurance to our clients to protect them in the event of an HMRC investigation.
This enables us to to deal with Inland Revenue on your behalf, attend your office on the day of the inspection, and assist them with any queries they may have. All our charges incurred whilst assisting you should be covered by the Tax Investigation Insurance. Should any activities or assistance in the course of the investigation not be covered by the Insurance we would of course notify you before taking any further action.
If you are not an existing client, please see our section on bookkeeping to give you some ideas on how we can help you maintain accurate and compliant records. If you have already had a letter/call from Inland Revenue and your accounts are not up to date, please contact us as soon as possible as we may be able to help you collate your records before their visit.