Received bill from Accountants - advice?

My Dad is an Accountant and he's been investigated twice this year. It wastes a full day of his time, he can't do anything else whilst the investigator is there. I've never heard of an accountant charging for it though.

HMRC can open random enquiries into any company's tax affairs as well as more systematic ones where large companies or groups can be involved, so there's no guarantee he won't get an enquiry at some point.

However equally he may not get an enquiry and even if he did, it may be that the accountant's costs of dealing with that would turn out to be less than £100 depending on how much the accountant charges and what the issue under enquiry is.

Really you have to weigh up whether you are willing to pay out £100 for peace of mind that there will be no additional costs if HMRC did open an enquiry, regardless of the scope of that enquiry, or whether you think it's too much to pay bearing in mind there may not be an enquiry at all or it may only be into an issue which may be cheaper to resolve once raised (I don't see how your accountant knows for certain that answering an enquiry would otherwise cost more than £100 unless he charges a flat fee).

Only your H can decide really.

Hi Crumbalina

H and I have our own business and we have the Investigation Protection (on the advice of our accountant). For the amount it could cost for the investigation we thought it was worth the 'small amount' now if that makes sense. I would hate to be lumbered with up to a £3000 bill in the future because I didn't want to pay the insurance. Our accountant says he has had quite a few of his clients investigated in the past year and we didn't want to take the risk.

HTH?

Like Wordsworth has said though it would depend upon the extent of the investigation and how much work was involved but I just prefer not to take my chances.