Treasury urged to rethink on tax adviser registration

Requiring conveyancers to register as tax advisers will create unnecessary regulatory burdens, duplicate regulatory effort and potentially encourage wrongdoing, a specialist conveyancing regulator has told HM Treasury’s chief secretary.

Tax advisers who interact with HM Revenue & Customs on behalf of clients will be required to register with the agency from May. 

The Law Society has already warned the treasury that the requirement could affect conveyancers filling out stamp duty land tax returns, which risks complicating and lengthening the home buying and selling process, and said the legislation should only target agents presenting the greatest compliance risk.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers has now urged the treasury to rethink its requirement.

In a letter to James Murray MP, chief secretary to the treasury, CLC chair Dame Janet Paraskeva said the regulator was disappointed 'that it still seems to be the intention to require conveyancers to register as tax advisers individually with HMRC'.

Paraskeva said the requirement would duplicate regulatory effort and increase regulatory burden in an area where compliance with tax law is not a major problem.

The CLC chief pointed out that conveyancers are not permitted to give tax advice to clients – they complete and submit stamp duty documents in line with their clients’ instructions. The requirement could give the wrong impression that conveyancers can give tax advice and 'this actually increases the risk of wrongdoing, by giving bad actors an opportunity to present themselves as tax advisers in a way that they cannot at present'.

Conveyancers are tightly regulated, including in relation to their obligations to HMRC, Paraskeva added. ‘I will observe here that this increase in the regulatory burden should also be seen alongside the unwelcome decision by HM Treasury to move anti-money laundering supervision away from front line regulators of lawyers, passing it to the [Financial Conduct Authority]. This too will inevitably duplicate effort and cost with no analysis pointing to reductions in money laundering as a result.'