This is like pleading guilty to save time and money.

A survey by Abbey Tax Protection Ltd, published in the Tax Adviser (external link), has shown the following statistics. Last year 85,000 businesses (self employed people and partnerships) were subjected to a 'full' enquiry by the Revenue (as opposed to an 'aspect' enquiry which covers a specific part of the person's tax affairs).

Each enquiry lasted an average of 18 months

Each enquiry resulted in an average payment of £3,500 per case

The average cost of defending the Revenue's actions was £2,000

And the bulk of the £294 million collected through full enquiries was largely as a result of commercial decisions to pay the Revenue what they were seeking rather than to pay the cost of the defence.

This means that a number of ordinary people elect to settle with the Revenue rather than to suffer the stress and cost of a protracted battle to establish their innocence. An undetermined percentage of these people are presumably innocent. They pleaded guilty to save time and money. These are people like you and me.

Fee Protection: We offer professional fee protection. This is designed to protect you from some of the costs of a Revenue enquiry. Click here for more detail, including prices.

How we can help you. Click here.

Developments after this page was prepared:

Businesses stressed by tax investigations
Twenty per cent of businesses subjected to a tax investigation collapse through stress and diverted management time.
Source: AccountingWeb.co.uk External link. 21 August 2002

Read this: Bad news for tax cheats ... very bad news

Page prepared on 30 October 2000
Amended on 15 April 2006 and on 18 February 2008
Data added on 26 February 2008