Solutions For Accountants

For many accountants, especially the sole practitioner, dealing with a Tax Enquiry can be quite a daunting prospect. The fact that you are not dealing with Tax Enquiries on a daily basis can mean that you simply lack the experience or expertise to be able to achieve the best possible solution for your client.
In addition, the in-depth and complex nature of Tax Enquiry work can be very demanding on your time and can take you away from getting on with the day-to-day running of your practice – therefore affecting the level of service you can offer to your other clients.

We only deal in Tax Enquiry work and therefore spend all of our time handling this type of work so we are specialists in this specific area.
Our aim is to provide a cost effective solution to the needs of accountants and their clients. Our experience and expertise in Tax Enquiry work has meant that we have been retained by a national franchised network of accountants to assist all of their franchisee accountants – in excess of 160 individual accountants around the UK.

We can provide a service to suit your needs – whether you simply require ad hoc advice on specific matters or you need someone to handle the entire Enquiry – we can provide the solution.
Some accountants are happy to let us take all the worry of dealing with a Tax Enquiry out of their hands and they leave us to handle all aspects including client contact. Others prefer to treat us more as though we are a specialist within their own firm so they can therefore provide a more seamless approach from a client perspective – the choice is yours. We are happy to handle your clients Tax Enquiry in a way that suits your requirements.

Once you make initial contact with us we will discuss your case and formulate a clear, structured approach to dealing with your Tax Enquiry.

Fee Protection Insurance

As you are probably aware, many accountants now offer their clients insurance protection against the cost of their fees associated with dealing with a Tax Enquiry. Some accountants arrange blanket cover for all their clients.
We are happy to deal with any of your clients covered by such schemes and you will find that our hourly rates are usually less than the rates reimbursed to you by most of these insurance schemes.

Tax Enquiry Solutions Support Contract

One of the problems with Fee Protection Insurance (see above) is that the Exclusions in the policy can effectively mean that those clients who are at most risk of being investigated by HMRC are unlikely to be covered by Fee Protection Insurance.

For example, generally, clients who have not been compliant (i.e. failed to submit Returns on time) would NOT be covered under the terms of an insurance policy ........ yet the very fact that these clients have not been compliant means that they are more likely to be selected for a Tax Enquiry.

Similarly, anyone who is already under Enquiry with HMRC would NOT be able to take out an insurance policy to cover the cost of professional fees for dealing with that Enquiry. So if you do not have the time and resources to devote to a potenially in-depth and time consuming Tax Enquiry, and with no opportunity to take out suitable insurance cover for this work,  you may have to turn away any potential clients who approach you with such a problem.

In addition, many Fee Protection Insurance policies would NOT provide cover for the more serious investigations dealt with by Special Civil Investigations (SCI) offices or those handled under the Civil Investigation of Fraud (CIF) procedure.

Our solution to this problem is to offer Support Contracts to accountants as an alternative to Fee Protection Insurance.

For an agreed fixed monthly payment, the accountant can utilise our service at any time during the period of the Support Contract. This means that not only are we available to provide ad-hoc general advice and support on Tax Enquiry related matters but we will also assist you if ANY of your clients are selected by HMRC for a Tax Enquiry.  

This would include:-

• Clients who have NOT been compliant,
• Clients who are ALREADY under Enquiry,
• Clients who are subject to the MORE SERIOUS (SCI and CIF) Investigations.

Our Support Contracts therefore result in MORE of your clients having access to a Tax Enquiry specialist than if Fee Protection Insurance had been taken out.

In addition, any accountant enagaging our services via a Support Contract will also be entitled to a free place on one of our Tax Investigation courses (see our 'Training' page). 

Surprisingly, the cost of engaging Tax Enquiry Solutions via a Support Contract is actually likely to be LESS than taking out Fee Protection Insurance for all your clients.

Contact us for more details.

Training For Accountants

We also hold regular Training Courses for accountants. These courses are particularly useful for sole practitioner accountants or small firms who do not often handle Tax Enquiry work and therefore may lack the necessary experience.

So if you would like to deal with your clients Tax Enquiry cases but need help developing your understanding of this specialist area, our Tax Enquiry Training Courses will be ideal for you. The courses are designed to give accountants the confidence required to handle Tax Enquiry work.

These courses are held throughout the year at our training venue situated right next to Birmingham International Train Station and we are minutes from Birmingham International Airport and Junction 6 of the M42 Motorway. So we are easily accessible wherever you are located.

See our Training page for more details.