Graham Walker FCA

My long time business partner, Bob Hoyle, used to be a Tax Inspector and for twenty five years or so was involved in tax investigations (now called tax enquiries for some reason). Over the past few years we have been asked to negotiate with the Revenue when taxpayers have found themselves in this unfortunate situation. The scenario has followed a pattern.  Clients have either tried to do their own tax returns, or worse still, have used an “accountant” who has been totally inept.  Accountancy is one of the few professions that remains unregulated by the Government.  Basically anyone can set up an accountancy practice and call themselves “Accountants”, in fact, I believe that more than half of the country’s accountancy practices are run by people who have never even taken a tax exam, let alone passed one. It is little wonder that the highly trained Tax Inspectors can run rings around the taxpayer whose only mistake was to trust an inexperienced advisor. We do not charge the ridiculous fees that you might expect from the big firms and we will not act for anyone who has been blatantly “fiddling”.  The Revenue knows this and perhaps this accounts for our spectacular rate of success.