HMRC appears to be increasingly taking the decision to raise cross-tax enquiries for companies. This means that, rather than opening an enquiry into a single area such as corporation tax or VAT, HMRC is instead choosing to look across all taxes in one fell swoop.
Receiving a letter from HMRC notifying their intention to carry out a cross-tax check can be a daunting prospect. With detailed queries and requests across corporation tax, PAYE and VAT, the enquiry process can inevitably be time consuming and complex.
The first steps, however, are to understand what HMRC is trying to achieve from the process, asking what risk profile they have attached to the business, and exploring how their concerns can be best addressed with minimal impact to the business.
We can of course help with this process and if you are part of our Tax Investigation Service, our costs for doing so will also be covered.