T21 - The taxman says he’s going to pay special attention to people with complex returns. Could this mean you? If so, what can you do about it?

The Taxman has recently publicised the fact that he has established seven Complex Personal Return (CPR) teams around the country These teams will process the tax returns of the individuals he believes have complex tax affairs. The Taxman says this is a way of providing a better service as it allows better trained staff to deal with these tax returns. What he really means is it's a chance to scrutinise each return in the expectation of collecting more tax. So what constitutes a complex return? Anyone who has income or gains of £200,000 or more a year or who claims non-resident or non-domicile status is automatically considered a complex case. This may not include you, but the Taxman could move your file to a CPR team if you have income from lots of different sources. When your file is transferred to a CPR team you will receive a letter telling you about your new tax office address.

The taxman’s plan is that every "complex' tax return will be examined each and every year. The Taxman is saying that for these taxpayers, random enquiries have been abandoned and every entry on the return will be scrutinised in detail!

In practice, we don't think the Taxman has the time or the resources to actually look at every one of the "complex" returns in detail. So the existing, so-called random enquiries system will prevail. Why announce the CPR treatment? Yet again the Taxman is trying to scare taxpayers into amending their returns in the hope that they will voluntarily pay more tax.