Tax Health Plan (THP) update

HMRC are due to issue 2,500 letters targeting doctors and dentists. These started being issued last week and further letters are due to go out from this week commencing 14 November 2011.

All letters clearly state that HMRC hold information about the practitioner’s undisclosed income and require the practitioner to respond. Those who do not respond will face ‘specified further action’, which, for the vast majority, HMRC say means that a determination of tax due will be sent and pursued; some may face referral for criminal investigation.

HMRC have informed us that in excess of £10m has been disclosed by medical practitioners as a result of the THP. HMRC have already made some progress with the follow up compliance activity for this Medics campaign which closed last year. HMRC are aware of which doctors and dentists have not filed a self assessment return and have compared this to cases where they think a return should have been made. HMRC have indicated that:

• over 1000, one-to-one interventions (S9A enquiries) have been opened;
• HMRC have designed alternative strategies looking at targeting individuals where data shows there may be a problem;
• initial results have had high response rates; and
• HMRC are now moving forward to this much larger group.

Technical Team

15 November 2011