[AuRavelling79]

That will be because he will have been found to be fraudulent in the eyes of HMRC - nothing to do with his lack of records beyond year 5.

But if you don’t keep them past 5 years then you cannot defend yourself or prove your innocence if you get an investigation as you wouldn’t have any paperwork , legally you have to keep it 5 years for your own piece of mind it’s worth keeping the much longer

You'd only get an investigation where they pore over records that far back if you had other reasons to be on the radar.

I know a chap who got done for £20,000 when it was seven years. They only went back that far.

If they had found his Caribbean island claimed as a garden office they aren't going to worry about whether the £10 spent on petrol for his wife's car was a business expense or not in 2006.

 

[Splash and dash]

That will be because he will have been found to be fraudulent in the eyes of HMRC - nothing to do with his lack of records beyond year 5.

But if you don’t keep them past 5 years then you cannot defend yourself or prove your innocence if you get an investigation as you wouldn’t have any paperwork , legally you have to keep it 5 years for your own piece of mind it’s worth keeping the much longer

You'd only get an investigation where they pore over records that far back if you had other reasons to be on the radar.

I know a chap who got done for £20,000 when it was seven years. They only went back that far.

If they had found his Caribbean island claimed as a garden office they aren't going to worry about whether the £10 spent on petrol for his wife's car was a business expense or not in 2006.

 

Sorry but that’s not true if you get an investigation they usually will go back way beyond 5 years as they hope to claw back as much money as possible to make the investigation worth while and there reasoning is that what ever the discrepancy that you have been doing it for many years , was only talking to my accountant about this a few weeks ago and he said they go back through everything for up to 20 years on all the cases he’s been involved with and only one case ended up with back dated tax , the reason ones were able to refute HMRC figures was due to having kept records way beyond what you legally need to do . He tells all his clients to keep records for 20 years just in case they might ever be needed .