HMRC has written to around 1000 wealthy taxpayers asking them to call and discuss their 2021/22 SA tax return before it is submitted. These letters have not been copied to the taxpayer’s authorised tax agent, as far as we are aware.
‘Wealthy’ in this context refers to an individual with an income of over £200,000, or who has assets exceeding £2 million. Such taxpayers receive special attention and guidance from ‘wealthy teams’ within HMRC.
These letters are part of a pilot project, and we don’t know how the recipients have been chosen from the total population of wealthy taxpayers, which is estimated to be around 800,000. The professional bodies were not consulted before this pilot scheme was launched in April 2022.
If you receive such a letter, you need to be reassured that it hasn’t been prompted by anything reported on an earlier tax return, and that there are no sinister undertones implied in the text of the HMRC letter. Also, there is no obligation for you to take up the invitation to call HMRC.
If you do want to talk HMRC, we would advise speaking to your accountant first, and consider that they join the call to explain any technical terms used.
Anything the HMRC officer says during the phone call can’t be relied upon as sound advice, as demonstrated by a number of tax tribunal judgments. Also, HMRC states in the invitation letter that it won’t guarantee not to carry out a compliance check on the tax return after it has been filed.
Collecting tax from wealthy individuals
All data and figures referred to in our news section are correct at the date of publishing and should not be relied upon as still current.