12 January 10
HMRC announce "Tax amnesty" for medical professionals

“The medical  accounts department of Dodds was awash with emails on Monday 11 January 2010 when HMRC announced a “tax amnesty” for medical professionals to declare previously undeclared income to the tax authorities. We feel that there is a certain amount of hysteria surrounding the announcement. Comments like those suggesting certain doctors or dentists having “ secret Swiss bank accounts”  have undoubtedly gone a long way to whet the appetite of the financial- and mainstream - press.

Clients of Dodd and Co will be well aware of the need for full disclosure of tax information and we are confident that our clients will not be affected. However we would stress the need for our clients to continue to be vigilant in their documentation of income streams in their book keeping systems in order to keep any disclosure questions from HMRC to a minimum. It has to be said that the release of the “Tax Health Plan” by HMRC may signal that the accounts and tax returns of healthcare professionals may be subject to greater scrutiny in the near future. The Plan states that HMRC will be “matching” information notified on tax returns to information received from “NHS Trusts, private hospitals and medical insurers”. It would appear that at this stage HMRC may be targeting hospital consultants, as opposed to GPs or dentists in practices, but this could be the start of an overall assault on healthcare professionals as a whole.

A summary of the main points of the “Tax Health Plan” and Frequently Asked Questions can be found at www.hmrc.gov.uk/tax-health-plan. The main points to note are as follows:-

• Medical Professionals must notify HMRC of their “intention to disclose” by 31 March 2010
• The amount of the under-declared income must be notified and the tax due on it must be paid by 30 June 2010.
• If disclosure and payment takes place within the stated timescales, the penalty charged by HMRC will be limited to 10% of the tax due (normal penalties can be up to 100% of the tax due)
• The “amnesty” applies to undisclosed earnings up to 5 April 2008 – HMRC make it clear that earnings for the year ended 5 April 2009 should be fully disclosed on current tax returns before the submission deadline of 31 January 2010.

If anyone is affected by any of the above issues, they should contact Linda Willis or Claire Hebdige on 01768 864466.

Remember also that Dodd and Co offers full training to practices on computerised and manual book keeping systems which satisfy HMRC record keeping standards.”