Research and analysis

Trends in the tax agent market

Research exploring professional tax agents’ perceptions of how the tax agent market has recently changed and may change in the near future.

From:
HM Revenue & Customs
Published
15 July 2015

Documents

Trends in the tax agent market

Ref: HMRC Research Report 374

PDF, 645 KB, 33 pages

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Details

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) commissioned this research to improve its understanding of the professional tax agent market. This forms part of HMRC’s Agent Strategy of working together with agents, and will help HMRC to develop future initiatives to this target market.

The research shows that tax agents reported changing their service offerings to develop more tax specialisms, either to become “one stop shops” or to develop their consultancy services. Agents’ clients were perceived to be less wealthy, younger and “savvier” than they had been previously. Technological changes included an increase in automated services, which had increased efficiency and opportunities for agents. These trends were all broadly expected to continue over the next 5 to 10 years.

The research involved 40 in-depth telephone interviews with professional tax agents in February to March 2015.

Published 15 July 2015