Lucy Sauvage
Partner
The Business Risk Review+ process is the mechanism by which HMRC assess the tax risk they believe is associated with your business. The resulting risk rating sets the tone for your relationship with HMRC and the level of attention they will focus on your business.
Depending on your business’s existing rating, you can expect to go through the BRR+ process every one to three years. Achieving the lowest rating possible will save time and resource in the long run.
Below you will find more information about the BRR+ and how we can help you achieve the best possible rating.
About the Business Risk Review + (BRR+)
The BRR+ process, an evolution of the original BRR, has been developed to allow businesses to gain a clearer understanding of their risk rating, and what actions they can take in order to reduce their perceived risk.
The BRR+ process can involve a request for information from HMRC as well as a face to face meeting with a presentation by the business on how it is managing its tax risk.
The main features of the BRR+ are:
- There are now 4 risk categories: low, moderate, moderate-high and high.
- Your business’s landscape (including size, complexity, degree of change) will be considered
- A more granular approach across each type of tax, with an assessment of 24 low risk indicators, separated under three headings (Systems and Delivery, Internal Governance and Approach to Tax Compliance)
- The more low risk indicators your business fails to meet, the more likely it is to have a higher risk status
Benefits of a low BRR+ risk rating
Achieving a low BRR+ risk rating can set the tone for your relationship with HMRC and significantly reduce costs.
- Low risk businesses will be subject to BRR+ less frequently
- Your business will have more certainty over tax liabilities
- Interactions with HMRC will, in general, be driven by you rather than HMRC
- Enquiries instigated by HMRC will be the exception rather than the rule
Getting assurance over your BRR rating
You can work with us to prepare you and your business, for the BRR+ process and help you achieve as low a risk rating as possible. There are number of benefits of working with us to prepare for the BRR+ process. These include;
- Determine an indicative risk rating benchmarked against HMRC risk factors, using our BRR+ methodology and automated questionnaire
- Understand where you are relative to your peers and competitors through our benchmarking
- Undertake a pre-review to help identify and rectify potential issues
- Feel completely ready by completing practice HMRC review sessions
