How fair to claimants and advisors is HMRC’s seemingly scattergun approach to issuing FIS letters? Here Paul Rosser shares some thoughts.
Back in 2022, it became apparent that some companies which had submitted a claim for R&D tax relief subsequently received a letter from HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service (FIS), which stated that the R&D claim had “triggered an alert” on HMRC’s system, and “caused HMRC to believe that you have fraudulently claimed money to which you were not entitled”.
Obviously, receiving a letter from HMRC’s FIS team would be concerning for most companies, especially as the letter in question also included a disclaimer at the bottom which read: “At this time, HMRC has not opened a criminal investigation into this suspected fraud. However, you should be aware that HMRC reserves the right to open a criminal investigation into any suspected fraud committed against the R&D scheme.”
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