Middle Class Professionals such as dentists, doctors, lawyers in tax evasion crackdown!
On 11 January 2010 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) launched a campaign to provide an opportunity for medical consultants to declare income not previously returned to HMRC. This suggests that some medical professionals may be understating the amount of earnings on which tax is due.
The campaign is aiming to make it easy for doctors, dentists, consultants and others to get their tax affairs back on the right track. As with the recent offshore Non Disclosure Opportunity, they have tried to make it attractive by offering the certainty of a reduced penalty of 10%.
It has been widely reported in recent national press that the middle class professions are facing an “unprecedented campaign against tax evasion by Government Revenue inspectors.....Doctors and dentists were identified yesterday as the first groups that HMRC inspectors would target. Other blue collar workers including solicitors, barristers and accountants were expected to be targeted in the coming months in what the inspectors have named the professions campaign.” (Daily Telegraph 12 January 2010)
According to the Daily Telegraph report from Vantis Medical Group, Richard Limburg “Anyone who refuses to disclose their unpaid tax, and is caught after the deadline, faces criminal prosecution and up to seven years in jail. They could also find themselves named and shamed on the revenues website”. It is likely that HMRC sees the medical profession, especially the consultants, as easy pickings and this could raise substantial amounts.
This Inland Revenue opportunity is called the 'Tax Health Plan' and the basic details are:-
- Medical professionals have until 31 March 2010 to register their intention to disclose;
- HMRC has provided a unique telephone number and mailbox for them to provide basic registration data;
- Disclosures must be complete and payments made to HMRC by 30 June 2010;
- Disclosures are on a prescribed set of forms.
HMRC will undoubtedly be looking very closely at this situation in the next couple of years. Currently under self assessment rules, the only way that HMRC can now ask questions on your tax affairs is to raise a formal enquiry.
If you wish to discuss any issues raised by this campaign please do not hesitate to contact Peter Warren, Tax Director.
Email: peterwarren@bird-luckin.co.uk | Tel: 01245 254250
Links to full articles
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/tax-health-plan/thp-faqs.pdf