Latest news from Taxwise on tax investigations

We continue to face challenging economic times and there are no signs of any good news soon. HMRC activity has been well publicised and unsurprisingly we have seen unprecedented levels of claims. In the 6 months to 30 September 2011 claims notifications are in excess of 50% higher than the same period last year. A third of claims are PAYE and VAT compliance checks, 2% are Schedule 36 interventions with no reference to statute and 2% are cross tax enquiries covering income tax, corporation tax, PAYE and VAT in one enquiry. We are seeing HMRC focus on records, systems and controls and increasingly these checks do not relate to submitted returns.