Tax Investigation Insurance

chrismac1 · 7 November 2010 at 11:45PM

It's decent. Any of my clients with sales under £1m get that same insurance for £76.50 including VAT, so ask your guy to try a bit harder on price!

morgani · 9 November 2010 at 1:49PM

I would also recommend the Qdos policy. I currently offer the plus policy to my client on a client chooses basis. Prices are either £100 for Sole trader or £135 for a Ltd Co.

My plan is to make this part of my fees next year. My fees will go up by around £3 a month and everyone who I engage will be covered by the policy.

Big discounts are available from Qdos for an all client policy and I think it makes more sense for everyone to be part of it for only £3 a month.

As for whether a policy is right for you depends on how you view your risk. I'm sure you will wish you had taken it out if you get an investigation. Likewise if you take out the policy sods law will play a part and you probably won't ever be investigated.

Only you can decide really.

max11 · 9 November 2010 at 10:25PM

Thanks morgani, i am going for it.
£76,50 is less then half price. The prospectus that I got from my accountant offers the insurance for £175. how can I justify my request to have a lower premium?
can I tell him, another accountant offers the same insurance (taxwise plus?) at £76,50?

chrismac1 · 9 November 2010 at 11:18PM

Taxwise plus fee protection service - covers "attendance at any meeting with HMRC" amongst other things. This I think is important and often excluded from policies which just cover investigations. Harmless HMRC meetings can end up being very harmful! It's also worth saying that the ICPA fee protection service (supplied by Taxwise) is even cheaper but your accountant needs to pay for this and insure every single client. For me, roughly half of my client base is BOTH at low risk of being investigated AND at low risk of a protracted and costly investigation, so I felt the route I have taken - in offering it to all clients for them to decide - was a better option. No doubt other accountants are enrolling all clients and hence getting the cost per client down.

Max11, there is nothing stopping you going direct to an insurance provider like Qdos or Taxwise plus if there is a big mark-up being whacked on by your accountant.

max11 · 10 November 2010 at 10:04PM

Thank you, that makes perfect sense! i will call them tomorrow!
cheers

davdav · 21 January 2011 at 1:33PM

You can get this insurance for much cheaper if you ask your professional indemnity insurer. mine offered me up to £25k for just £29 as an add on to my current insurance. From my research the average investigation for self employed costs £3000 and ltd company costs £5000 so this should be sufficient.

zygurat789 · 21 January 2011 at 2:18PM

I read, somewhere, that this is covered by the legal expenses section of your home contents policy.

Al_Ross · 16 February 2011 at 10:32PM

Direct Line Plus Home Insurance also includes tax insurance,anyone know if that would mean tax investigation insurance?

chrismac1 · 16 February 2011 at 11:06PM

Great care is needed here as I have already pointed out. A tax investigation is a small subset of the possible range of interactions you can have with HMRC other than routine correspondence, so naturally very cheap insurance is possible if most of your reasons to be able to make a claim are excluded. It is not so much the cost of an investigation that is the issue, it's the amount of management time needed - time you could be getting in new business or executing business already won.

So if HMRC set up a "fishing trip meeting" and you have the costs of your accountant covered and answer the questions such that HMRC think "We're backing a loser here" there is no investigation. if you are not covered, so take a flyer and have the meeting on your own and fall into their snares, now you get the investigation.

metso · 7 April 2011 at 10:33AM

is it at all possible to take out insurance once an investigation has initiated?

In other words once HMRC have started to ask questions.

Thank you.

Tax Investigation Insurance

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