HMRC are planning a massive increase in the take from: tax investigations, employer compliance review, tax enquiries, employment status reviews and CIS reviews, so you have been warned

HMRC plans to seize an extra £4bn in 2010/11 through more aggressive tax investigation work and tougher powers. To achieve such a high yield, HMRC will need to widen the scope of its enquiry work to include marginal cases. This increases the risk innocent businesses are caught up in a massive fishing exercise

Tax investigations can be hugely costly to taxpayers in respect of management time, stress and advisory fees, while much of the tax HMRC claws in through investigations is not tax that has been deliberately evaded, in many cases it is the result of HMRC reinterpreting tax law and this brings in the well known scenario of my pockets are deeper than yours – otherwise known as if an individual or business can’t afford to challenge HMRC’s decision through the tribunals and court system, then HMRC wins.

So you have been warned, take specialist advice before it happens to you