According to recent figures, 23 per cent of HMRC\u2019s tax investigations take more than a year, and a small number \u2013 3,800 out of 115,000 local tax office cases \u2013 were not resolved even after a period of three years.<\/p>\n
The research was published by law firm RPC and it highlights how ongoing investigations, which are not resolved quickly, can have a massive financial impact on small firms, as well as their ability to function normally, because senior managers are required to invest their time in the process.<\/p>\n
HMRC has recently upped the level of investigation it conducts into businesses\u2019 financial affairs, as well a self-employed workers, in a bid to collect more tax revenue.<\/p>\n
Due to the length of investigations, those affected are being put in a more uncertain position as to whether or not the tax authority will demand more tax from them than initially asked for.<\/p>\n
Following the publication of the report, there have been more calls for HMRC to implement a system whereby there is a time limit for how long they are permitted to conduct their investigations, which would also cut costs for HMRC as well as those being investigated.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for HMRC said: \u201cWe aim to resolve issues as quickly as possible, so we can collect any money that is owed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut where a case is complex, we will take whatever time is necessary to investigate and resolve it.\u201d<\/p>\n
HMRC emphasised that it made a million tax investigations last year and that the majority of cases were resolved in a matter of weeks or months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to recent figures, 23 per cent of HMRC\u2019s tax investigations take more than a year, and a small number \u2013 3,800 out of 115,000 local tax office cases \u2013 were not resolved even after a period of three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":980,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}