Amit Puri – fully technically qualified Inspector of Taxes (2004 – 2015, HM Revenue & Customs)

Amit Puri is the founder of the ‘Pure Tax Investigations’ “Tax Investigations & Disputes” practice, having joined & grown the fore-running tax business at Lancaster Knox from March 2018; utilising approximately 14 years (then) of focused investigative experience to continue ‘fighting tooth & nail’ for his clients.

He is highly accomplished in representing clients in the most serious HMRC tax investigations, where historic issues need to be regularised, as well as risk assessing and resolving other HMRC disputes. He handles HMRC via correspondence (requiring seasoned presentational skills) and at face to face meetings (providing that much needed professional and expert buffer for clients) and over calls as appropriate.

Amit’s clients include entrepreneurs growing their businesses and larger established family-owned businesses, right through to international groups operating in the UK and overseas, including all kinds of partnerships and trusts/settlements.

Amit is uniquely positioned to assist his clients, having spent almost 11 years with HMRC as a senior Tax Inspector, investigating within specialist teams in London for most of the time, and as a Senior Policy & Strategy Adviser in Whitehall. With a history of managing all types of tax compliance checks (i.e. self-assessment enquiries) and more intrusive and in-depth investigations (under Code of Practice 9 (COP9) and Code of Practice 8 (COP8) where large amounts of tax are involved and/or there are suspicions of tax fraud/evasion). Click here to see Amit’s official HMRC Tax Inspector’s training program completion certificate from 2004.

As well as complex settlement negotiations based on careful consideration of clients’ ‘behaviour’ to achieve commercial outcomes for them; clients’ exposure to financial penalties and the plethora of other sanctions; He is well versed in the art of informal and formal information notices.

Most of Amit Puri’s HMRC career was spent working in Specialist Investigations’ Fraud & Bespoke Avoidance (now Fraud Investigation Service). He has specialised in complex tax risk assessments, acquiring third party evidence and exploiting data/intelligence. Also, having been Head of HMRC’s Offshore/LDF Disclosures team in London, he is very well placed to advise clients about the significant and increasing risk of being identified by HMRC as a person of interest and prompted to make a tax disclosure.

It is key to Amit to ensure that he has up-to-date knowledge about HMRC’s structure and projects / activities. Armed with these quality HMRC business insights, Amit works hard to keep his network of trusted intermediaries well positioned in order to advise them and, in turn, them retaining their clients (e.g. book-keepers, accountants, financial advisers, lawyers, international private bankers and wealth managers). He has a key understanding of HMRC’s evolving policies and processes and how their investigators think, all of which enables him to easily identify and approach tax risks and third parties for information in complex investigations.

As well as keeping contacts well informed, Amit Puri writes tax articles, provides expert commentary on topical tax issues, regularly presents to large groups and manages our presence in Monaco, Dubai and Mumbai.

Between March 2015 and February 2018 Amit was part of Grant Thornton’s Tax Investigations practice, and latterly led the London based team as the Director. He was also a core member of their South Asia Group, bringing together specialists from all disciplines to serve clients better across a diverse range of areas, including Private Client, Real Estate, VAT, Employer Solutions, International, Corporate Finance etc. In November 2018 Amit Puri launched the Knox Group’s South Asia Team, bringing together the requisite cultural know-how from across the international group, to serve the Group’s clients best.