Welcome to SPI-tax

Below is a very small selection of some of the fabulous results I have been able to achieve for my clients over the past 20 years:

I was presented with a case of an IT consultant who hadn't registered with HMRC since going self-employed in 1999 in advance of all the expected issues with the turn of the millennium.  His problems were compounded as he had a bad gambling habit.

After the birth of his daughter he was keen to regulate his tax affairs and get his gambling under control.  He registered with Gamblers Anonymous and because of his concerns for prosecution over his tax position, we registered the case under HMRC's Code of Practice 9.  HMRC accepted our Outline Disclosure and agreed under the circumstances not to insist on a full disclosure report.  The case was concluded within 8 months with HMRC agreeing a Time To Pay arrangement which the client felt he would be able to keep to.

 

There have been many offshore disclosure facilities since the first in 2007 and I have made disclosures under all of them including the latest Worldwide Disclosure Facility (WDF).  The WDF opened on 5 September 2016 and whilst the most favourable terms ceased on 30 September 2018 when on 1 October 2018, new sanctions under Requirement to Correct were introduced, it is still possible to make disclosures using the WDF.

I have been involved in reviewing individual's worldwide tax affairs to assess whether a disclosure is required to HMRC and have used HMRC's Non-Statutory Clearance Service to establish whether there is a requirement to disclose in situations where the position is not clear.

One elderly couple sought advice in relation to a assets held in Singapore, Malaysia, Switzerland and the UK.  After summarising the assets, income and gains over the past six years, I was able to inform them that there was no disclosure required.  We had previously agreed to register the couple under the WDF.  Made a request for HMRC's confirmation of our findings under Annex E and subsequently withdrew the facilities after receiving written confirmation of HMRC's position. 

If you or your client has an offshore matter which you are concerned about, please get in touch and I would be happy to review the facts and give you an opinion.

A husband and wife had been in partnership for many years but had not declared all of there takings from their shop.  HMRC undertook a full enquiry insisting on both business and private records.  I was able to establish HMRC's concerns and provide focus to the enquiry.  In this case I successful argued with HMRC that the private records were not required.  The case was concluded by way of contract settlement with all parties happy with the outcome.

A client had purchased a property to rent.  The property was heavily mortgaged and when fully let covered the annual running costs. As there was no profit, she mistakenly thought that she did not have to declare the property to HMRC.  Unfortunately, her error was compounded as she had taken the full mortgage payments in to account when calculating that there was no profit and not just the interest element.  An area which has been further complicated by the  phased income tax restriction rules from 6 April 2017.

After finding out that the property should have been disclosed she contacted us in quite an agitated and disturbed state.  I prepared rental income statements to compute the correct profits/losses and made a disclosure, with her agreement, to HMRC under the Let Property Campaign.  This is an on-line disclosure service provided by HMRC and allowed the whole process to be handled with minimal input from the client thus minimising her stress.

Our client was a large property developing company and HMRC had wanted to issue them with a number of information request notices under section 36 of the Taxes Management Act 1970.  I was able to discuss the case with the inspector and find out what the issues were.  We then together tailored an information request notice which was acceptable to both HMRC and more importantly our client.

There are numerous other cases that I could cite where I have been instrumental in obtaining favourable results for my clients.