Is a tax investigation specialist what I am looking for?

mytaxthrowaway2

To cut a long story short: I was doing online stuff as a hobby a few years ago with no money involved - current day it is a business with paying clients.

I am looking to straighten stuff out and make sure I am paying what tax I need to (past and future) and also claiming what I can - for example start-up expenses etc.

With it being an online business, all of my financials are easily tracked so I can comb through it all and get exact numbers - I am just unsure of where this all begins - In my head it's a real mess, on paper it might be really straight forward for those with the knowledge.

With having such a blurry crossover between hobby and business, I likely need to repay some benefits and tax.

So for my question: Is a tax investigation specialist what I am looking for? I think they may be making a Unprompted HMRC disclosure?

Any idea what it may cost? After looking at a previous MSE forums thread people were quoting £1k-£2k per year of statements to deal with.

Thanks for reading!

Grumpy_chap

If all of your financials are easily tracked, you should be able to provide those records to an Accountant who can prepare the necessary submissions easily.
Who do you think is making an Unprompted HMRC disclosure?

Pennywise

Any normal half decent qualified accountant can do that.  You shouldn't need a tax investigation specialist.  (Unless the figures are so huge that the tax due is large enough to warrant HMRC opening an enquiry/investigation).  In most cases, the accountant would present the numbers to HMRC, who in turn would basically rubber stamp them if they looked reasonable.

[Deleted User]

My advice - make an appointment with an accountant. The first consultation is generally free. You will achieve much more then than from an forum such as this.

pjcox2005

"To cut a long story short: I was doing online stuff as a hobby a few years ago with no money involved - current day it is a business with paying clients."

What do you mean by this bit, at what point do you think you crossed from being a hobby with no money involved to taking money and considering it a business.
You mention still doing it as a hobby a few years ago so it doesn't feel like we're talking much history. Even if taking money, as long as your gross profit was less than £1,000 you should be fine (Tax-free allowances on property and trading income - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)) or do you think you're doing significantly more back then.

We've only just got to the point of submitting the 19/20 tax return, and now in 20/21 tax year (runs to start of April) so if you started trading (i.e. making money from the hobby) from April 19 it's probably more a case of just preparing a tax computation and accounts for that, and then making sure you are doing the right thing for future. I mention it as I think there is a big difference to tidying that up as opposed to tax investigations and straightening all historic years out if they could potentially have larger liabilities.

molerat

I likely need to repay some benefits ..........

What benefits are these ? Could be way worse than the taxman's bite if it involves possible, if inadvertent, benefit fraud

macman

The info you have disclosed is far too vague for anyone to give you meaningful advice. We don't know what level of trading profits you are talking about, or whether the business is now your sole occupation, or in addition to other employment or income?

If it's not, and your trading profits are less than the personal allowance, then no tax would be due.

What makes you think that an accountant or book-keeper cannot handle this, as long as you give them all the data, which you say you can easily do?