Customs now have specialist motor trade teams around the country to visit dealers and quiz them on their accounts.

Trevor Jones, the UK accountancy agency, attended an HM Revenue & Customs conference yesterday, and confirmed the development of the new Customs motor trade team.

"These new officers have an in-depth understanding of the trade and are putting greater reliance on computer based query systems that extract information directly from the dealership’s accounting records. Any errors can be found more quickly and with less work.

"With 75% of visits resulting in assesments, we are advising dealers to ensure they are ready for this new targeted approach," said Trevor Jones.