YOU may have heard that Taunton is to lose its tax office. HMRC has already closed all of its walk in enquiry centres and in five years time there will not be a single tax office West of Bristol.

The organisation will be relocating to 13 new regional hubs and will increasingly rely on digital channels of communication and telephone call centres.

It will be a very different world to the one I knew when I joined A C Mole & Sons back in 1980, when Taunton had two tax districts and a separate office for HM Collector of Taxes.

Some people may be tempted to think that this means that HMRC will be less active in the South West. I suspect that the opposite will be the case.

HMRC is using some very sophisticated intelligence gathering methods these days.

For several years now, the figures and information contained in limited company accounts and tax returns has had to be electronically tagged.

This enables HMRC to compare similar businesses across the country to see if anything in a particular set of accounts looks odd or unexpected and to pick out key information.

The initial sifting is done by computer with specialist teams following up on items the software throws up.

HMRC also uses specialised software to track down people who are trading on the internet but who don’t declare the income.

Its Connect computer system trawls billions of pieces of information from the Land Registry, Companies House and from bank and building societies and compares this with entries on individual tax returns. Anomalies are then investigated.

There is no need for local offices to facilitate this kind of activity and I believe we will see HMRC make more and more use of the vast amount of information it can now access. Enquiries are likely to become better targeted and more effective.

HMRC will also continue to build on the success of its task forces. These target particular trades in particular areas in short, intensive campaigns.

The teams have specialist knowledge and are generally armed with intelligence from the sources I have already described.

Just because the lights will be going off at Michael Paul House doesn’t mean the tax man has gone away – as you look at the for sale sign, he may well be looking over your shoulder.

The only difference is, you may not be able to see him.

* Paul Aplin OBE is a tax partner with A C Mole & Sons and chairman of the Technical Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales Tax Faculty; you can follow him on Twitter @PaulAplinOnTax. He and fellow tax partner Amanda Gunter can be contacted on 01823 624450.