HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have announced that they are offering medical professionals with undisclosed tax liabilities an opportunity to bring their tax affairs up to date. The scheme which HMRC have called the “Tax Health Plan” (THP) allows those making a disclosure to benefit from a fixed penalty.

Taxpayers who wish to make a disclosure must notify their intention to disclose by 31 March 2010 and further details on how to do so are available at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ tax-health-plan/making-disclosure.pdf

Once a taxpayer has notified their intention to make a disclosure they have until 30 June 2010 to actually make a full disclosure of all undeclared liabilities and to make full payment of all outstanding taxes, duties, interest and penalties. The penalty that should be included in the disclosure is a fixed 10% of the underpaid taxes/duties, unless the total amount of the unpaid liability being disclosed is less than £1,000, in which case no penalty applies.

As part of the overall process, HMRC is obtaining information from various sources, including NHS trusts, private hospitals and medical insurers. HMRC will then use this information to verify that the disclosures received are accurate and complete and also to identify taxpayers who it believes should have made disclosures but have not. In these instances HMRC has stated that it will pursue the undeclared tax liabilities and it will also seek to impose penalties of up to 100% of the tax due. In addition, in exceptional circumstances criminal investigation may be considered.

Further details regarding the above, including a list of frequently asked questions can be accessed from the HMRC website at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/tax-health-plan/index. htm