Making a voluntary disclosure

payrollpro

For the first time I have to make a self employment voluntary disclosure on behalf of a client. I've done plenty of PAYE, pension and benefits in kind disclosures in the past but this is a new one even for me. My need is for the most appropriate address more than anything as the disclosure is ready and approved by the client.

My understanding is that this one is becoming increasingly common, a rental property which requires remortgaging and the lender insisting on seeing two years worth of accounts and SA302s before making a decision. No declaration had ever been made so cue an urgent SA return for current year and late return for previous for it all to be sorted. Client then admits she's owned and rented out the property since 2006 and wonders if she should now admit to it formally!!

We gave her the option of simply disengaging from us and make her own mind up what to do. The alternative, now that she had admitted it, was to accept the fact that we are now obliged to sort the rest of it out and do a disclosure of historical earnings and settle with HMRC. Feeling the need to unburden herself that's exactly what she wants to do, clearly the whole issue has been keeping her awake at night. Rather than submit ancient returns and land her with late submission penalties running into five figures, especially considering the final tax bill comes to less than £1,500, we have elected to make it a single, one-off, disclosure which gives us more control over any negotiations, but who do we write to? I cannot find anything on HMRCs website except the usual self assessment address and all the old PAYE compliance teams just don't exist anymore.

Anyone recently done something like this and is prepared to give me an address for the compliance team in personal tax?

My sympathies are mixed here. I want to do the right thing for the client, especially since she wants to do the right thing, but its tempered by the fact that she has owned and rented out this property for 12 years and claims she didn't know the income had to be declared!

douglasstroud

Can you not just declare it through the Let Property Campaign?

payrollpro

Yes, I tried that idea but it wasn't acceptable for the circumstances. We couldn't do anything other than returns for the final couple of years because the property wasn't the only problem, long story as usual. Short version is that the mortgage people were only prepared to accept confirmation of tax returns, nothing else and from experience, if you want the money you simply have to do as your told. Since you've referred to it though, I think I might just have another run through because I can't remember why it wasn't going to work.

payrollpro

Douglas, I really didn't realise this was still running and thanks for pointing to it. I still can't recall why we thought it was not relevant, probably because we are caught up in a few offshore loans trust cases as well. I think my client is in real trouble, even though the total is less than £2k underpaid, but I can only hope HMRC will see it as so far under the radar that they just accept it and stick on the usual penalty. Fingers crossed and thanks.

douglasstroud

When you fill out the form you have to apply the interest on the unpaid tax yourself and whatever % of penalty you feel is correct along with the payment, it is then up to HMRC whether they accept it or not