Adviser anger over HMRC tax letter responsibility

Deadline to inform clients today

Hannah Godfrey
clock • 2 min read

The burden of telling taxpayers to declare all overseas income should not fall on financial advisers but on HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), advisers have said.

IFS Wealth and Pensions director Ricky Chan said his firm had felt obliged to send notification letters to every client on its books to avoid a fine from the taxman, in a process that had taken about 30 working hours to complete. "We do very little offshore advice work but don't want to be caught out by HMRC and subsequently being penalised for it, so we've taken a blanket approach to ensure we don't miss any clients, and are re-sending the required letter out to all clients again," said Chan. "All these unpaid hours spent, taking time out of our usual day, just to avoid being fined b...

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