The government appears to have ignored pleas to exclude conveyancers from a requirement to register as tax advisers following guidance issued by HM Revenue & Customs.

Tax advisers who interact with HMRC on behalf of clients will be required to register with the agency from May – capturing conveyancers who submit stamp duty land tax returns on behalf of clients.

With the government wanting to speed up the home buying and selling process, the Law Society warned the treasury that the tax adviser requirement risked complicating and lengthening the process. The Council for Licensed Conveyancers told HM Treasury’s chief secretary that the move would create unnecessary regulatory burdens, duplicate regulatory effort and potentially encourage wrongdoing.

However, HMRC guidance published this week states that someone will be considered a tax adviser if they interact with the department about someone else’s tax affairs. Conveyancers do not appear on the list of people who do not need to register.

Read more

CLC chief executive Sheila Kumar said: ‘We are very disappointed that HMRC has not taken the opportunity to make a common-sense change to the regime to exclude conveyancers who are not permitted to give tax advice, but who make SDLT submissions and payments on behalf of clients.

‘The chair of the CLC Dame Janet Paraskeva’s letter to the chief secretary to the treasury set out the risks that will arise from this step, duplicating regulatory oversight of an area of work where there is no current problem and allowing bad actors to present themselves as registered with HMRC to give tax advice when they have no permission to give that advice to clients.

‘This runs counter to efforts to improve the home buying and selling process to deliver a better service to consumers and support growth in the economy.’

HMRC has been approached for comment.