Dave Wase describes his experiences of dealing with HMRC’s R&D Tax Credits Volume Compliance Team.
With the UK tax gap estimated to be somewhere north of £34bn, inflation remaining high and the ongoing government deficit from spending exceeding income, there is plenty of pressure currently being applied by HM Treasury for HM Revenue and Customs to increase tax receipts.
In their 2023 annual report and accounts, HMRC’s total tax revenues increased to £814bn, up on 2022’s earlier record of £731bn collected.
This is an impressive result especially on the back of a huge loss of experience in recent years. As covered in a previous article, this loss of experience has led to a new intake of officers. This new intake are invariably more intransigent and aggressive in their use of letters than previously was the norm. However they are usually not so keen to engage in face-to-face combat over a Microsoft Teams call or via an actual meeting.
With this constant pressure to increase the tax yield arising from enquiries, HMRC have looked across their ‘patch’ at new rich veins of yield to exploit. Additionally, HMRC have it seems become ever more creative in their interpretation and application of legislation and/or enquiry guidance available to them (or not, as the case may be).
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