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A7.420 What is HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service (FIS)?

HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service (FIS) is a specialist unit comprising of HMRC's specialist tax and criminal justice experts who deal with serious investigations. It combines the efforts of the previous Special Investigation Unit and the Criminal Investigations Unit which were both merged to form the FIS in August 2015. FIS carries out criminal and civil investigation and enforcement on a regional basis, and it includes a dedicated offshore team¹.

FIS has a number of aims which include providing²:

1. Ìý

   •ÌýÌýÌýÌý greater clarity about when HMRC should choose to carry out criminal or civil investigations, or both

2. Ìý

   •ÌýÌýÌýÌý a joined-up approach to tackling tax fraud

As well as creating FIS, HMRC also created two new directorates:

1. Ìý

   •ÌýÌýÌýÌý Individuals and Small Business Compliance, and

2. Ìý

   •ÌýÌýÌýÌý Wealthy and Mid-sized Business Compliance

These took over some of the activities previously undertaken by the Local Compliance and Specialist Personal Tax directorates, and align HMRC's response to both the individual