Category Archives: Audit

UK Tax Investigations On The Increase

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is under huge pressure to increase tax receipts and reduce tax leakage. As a result, HMRC has a growing appetite for launching investigations where it considers there is a reasonable possibility of collecting under-declared tax.

Intensive bursts of compliance activity are targeting business sectors considered to be high risk, and HMRC is sharing information internally more effectively than ever before, thus increasing its chances of identifying potential anomalies in taxpayers’ affairs. “The tax authority has created dedicated common interest teams, such as a unit focused on high net worth individuals and offices which deal exclusively with large businesses,” explains Valerie Watson, Moore Stephens tax partner who has assisted many clients on tax investigations. “Non-domiciled individuals taxed on the remittance basis are now handled by one tax district, again enabling easier cross-referencing and sharing of information.”

Tax inspectors may also be making use of new media, such as the internet, to identify individuals with valuable assets (such as holiday properties that are being let out for income) or undeclared profits (for example, from trading through internet auction sites).

New information sharing agreements between national tax authorities are also having an impact. Following the Tax Information Exchange Agreement between Liechtenstein and HMRC, the details of UK-resident taxpayers who hold accounts or assets in Liechtenstein will be passed to HMRC. “This goes hand-in-hand with the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility”, says Valerie, “which provides an opportunity for UK taxpayers to declare any unpaid tax voluntarily in exchange for reduced penalties and immunity from prosecution.”

Another notable example that reflects the changing times is the agreement reached between the UK and Switzerland whereby the Swiss banks will levy withholding tax on UK taxpayers’ bank accounts held in Switzerland and pass the sums concerned to HMRC via the Swiss tax authorities. They will do so without identifying any taxpayers, but this nevertheless represents a marked change in attitude by the Swiss Finance Department.

Specific events can also trigger tax investigations, as Valerie explains: “HMRC is currently investigating approximately 500 UK-resident holders of HSBC accounts in Switzerland, using data passed on by an ex-employee. HMRC has been using this data to open Code of Practice 9 investigations – which relate to cases of suspected serious fraud – without apparently screening to check whether taxpayers have already made appropriate disclosures. HMRC’s new Offshore Coordination Unit has started contacting the remaining account holders to offer them the opportunity to make a disclosure.”

This highlights the fact that individuals and businesses can find themselves subject to a tax investigation without there necessarily being any actual wrongdoing. However, given the complexity of the current tax system and the scope for differences of interpretation, any detailed HMRC investigation stands a reasonable chance of finding some element of under-declared tax somewhere in the affairs of an individual or a business.

Via EPR Network
More Accounting press releases

Wisteria Formations Releases New Complete Company Formation Guide

Wisteria formations, the UK’s leading online company formation agent, confirms the release of their complete company formations guide. Following an increasing number of enquiries from clients, Wisteria Formations can announce the release of the complete company formations guide. Wisteria Formations is one of the UK’s leading company formation agents. The company is backed by Wisteria Chartered Accountants, the accounting, tax and business plan specialists. They have been able to draw on all of this knowledge to produce a complete guide to incorporating a company in the UK, available for free download on their website, www.wisteriaformations.co.uk.

Andrew Millet, Director of Wisteria Formations and Wisteria Chartered Accountants, explains what prompted the release of the guide, “We often receive enquiries from clients regarding what they need to think about when setting up a company, as well as more specific queries. There is a lot of information available on the internet, but it was not easy for clients starting out for the first time to know where to look for it. In addition, you can’t always get all of the information you need in one place. The aim when producing our new company formation guide was to help our clients understand the process of forming their company and the things they need to think about. We have ensured it is easily found by placing a PDF version of it on our homepage in an accessible format.”

The company formations guide is designed to help people in a wide range of situations, from complete beginners to those who may have incorporated a number of companies before. It deals with issues arising at the conception of the business such as which business structure to use and takes you through the formation process step by step dealing with the issues you need to consider after formation. The majority of the guide is about how to go about forming a limited company and responsibilities you take on by doing so. This is useful for many new company formations as often people start a limited company without being fully aware of the responsibilities that they will take on as a director of a company.

Other information on the internet comes from many different sources and you will often find conflicting advice which can easily lead to a misunderstanding. The complete company formation guide aims to rectify this problem by taking people step by step through everything you need to consider when forming a limited company.

Wisteria Formations are happy to offer free support and advice when working through the online company formation process, through their UK customer support team. This, along with this the creation of the new company formations guide, will hopefully help to improve the understanding of limited companies in the future.

Via EPR Network
More Accounting press releases

Small business accountants and Self Assessment tax return specialist, Wisteria has this week unveiled its new website

Edgware-based, London accountants and business plan experts, Wisteria has launched its brand new website.

The new site, wisteria.co.uk is packed with user-friendly content, useful tips, working tax calculators and business plan templates as well other tools for businesses of all stages (start-ups and established businesses). Wisteria’s services range from business planning, to Self Assessment tax returns, tax advice and accountancy work The new website showcases their qualified team’s experience and expertise in the areas that growth businesses require.

The new website makes finding the services that best suit your business fast and simple. Key business areas and products are broken down into manageable chunks. Users can select the profile that is right for their business and explore the range of specialist services Wisteria can offer.

Wisteria is expecting to continue enhancing their website with new interactive functionality and further informative content. Users are encouraged to contact info@wisteria.co.uk should they have suggestions to further improve the site.

For more information about Wisteria and their business plan writing, accounting and tax return service please contact Andrew Millet.

Via EPR Network
More Accounting press releases

 

Welcome to EPR Accounting News

EPR Accounting News is a new blog, part of EPR Network, that is going to be focused on and will be covering the accounting news and stories from press releases published on EPR Network.

EPR Network (EPR stands for express press release) is one of the nation’s largest press release distribution networks on Web. The EPR’s nationwide network includes 12 State based PR sites, one major PR forum and a number of industry specific PR blogs and what started as a hobby on Internet years ago turned out to be a rapidly growing business today. EPR Network is also known as one of the most trusted (human optimized, published, edited and monitored, spam/scam/low quality PR content free) PR sites on the web with more than 10,000 company and individual press releases distributed per month. EPR Network is putting your press releases on top of all major search engines’ results and is reaching thousands of individuals, companies, PR specialists, media professionals, bloggers and journalists every day.

EPR Network has thousands of clients around the world including global 500 corporations like Hilton Hotels, Barclays Bank, AXA Insurance, Tesco UK, eBay/Skype, Emirates, just to name a few. The network’s PR web sites are currently reaching from 150,000 to sometimes 500,000 unique visitors per month while our viral reach could possibly go to as much as 1M people per month through our presence across various social media sites. EPR Network was established in 2004 and as of May 2008 it had more than 800,000 press releases (pages) published on its network.

If you have a press release to be distributed, you can do it over here: press release distribution