Business tax enquiries: take note by Amit Puri

Amit Puri helps you navigate potentially hazardous Business Risk Reviews and explains the role of the Customer Compliance Manager

Whichever part of HMRC a comparatively larger business is the target of, these business enquiries are typically carried out by a team of officers. This calls for increased resources being required at the business’ end – that is more people and time resources, and so more costs, too.

These enquiries should not to be confused with regular compliance checks into simpler corporation tax (CT) returns, which typically focus on a single accounting period and sometimes just a handful of aspects. The complex business enquiries discussed in this article are those that significantly disrupt the owners’ lives and/or their finance team’s and/or their advisers’.

What is a Customer Compliance Manager?

HMRC try to ensure continuity in terms of contact and a deeper industry specific understanding of the business. To do this, they appoint a dedicated Customer Compliance Manager (CCM, formerly known as a Customer Relationship Manager) for businesses managed by HMRC’s Large Business directorate (LB).

CCMs also take responsibility for a section of large businesses that fall within HMRC’s Wealthy & Mid-sized Business Compliance directorate’s (WMBC) remit, formerly referred to as Customer Co-ordinators.

HMRC’s LB manage (and thus constantly review) the very largest businesses, which typically have an annual turnover of over £200 million, or lower where the business or the sector in which it operates in is complex. There are reportedly about 2,000 such large businesses operating in the UK.

HMRC’s WMBC enquire into businesses typically with an annual turnover of £10 million or more, which they estimated numbering about 160,000 in 2023. Instead of a permanent CCM – as in LB – in WMBC the focus is on running the cross-taxes enquiries.

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