How long should you keep accounting records (2026 Guide)
How long should you keep accounting records? Somewhere in a filing cabinet, loft, or long-forgotten Dropbox folder sits the answer most business owners get slightly wrong. Sole traders and partnerships must keep their accounting records for at least five years after the 31 January Self Assessment deadline. Limited companies need six years from the end […]
What Triggers an HMRC Investigation? The Honest Answer Nobody Tells You
Here’s a fact that surprises most people: HMRC opens around 300,000 tax investigations every year, and a fair few of them aren’t triggered by anything you’d ever expect. So, what triggers an HMRC investigation? In short, it’s a mixture of computer algorithms, human tip-offs, random selection, and patterns in your figures that simply don’t add […]
5 Stages of a Tax Investigation and What to Do at Each One
There’s a particular kind of dread that comes with a letter from HMRC. You know the one — stiff envelope, official font, the word “investigation” sitting there on the page like a small explosion. Most people’s first instinct is to either phone someone in a panic or shove the letter in a drawer and pretend […]
