Less Tax for Landlords was the trading name of the One Consultancy Group. It was badly named, because its incompetence means many landlords are now paying more tax. Most of LT4L’s key staff were salesmen who, by their own admission, know nothing about tax. They relied on LT4L’s co-founder Chris Bailey.
Bailey was previously severely reprimanded by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), and subsequently ceased to be a member. He’s now been reprimanded and fined by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW), and then expelled by the ICAEW for failing to pay the fine. We don’t believe any of this has been disclosed to his clients.
So Bailey is now completely unregulated – we don’t believe that’s been disclosed to his clients (although his colleagues apparently knew). Just one more reason (on top of their incompetent advice) why LT4L should not be acting for anyone, and why their clients should urgently be seeking independent advice.
ICAEW
Bailey was reprimanded by the ICAEW in a disciplinary decision on 20 December 2022. He was accused of submitting tax returns for a client over four years without her authorisation, and then corresponding with HMRC about that client – again without her authorisation. From April to September 2020, Bailey failed to reply to enquiries from the ICAEW’s professional conduct department. He was therefore reprimanded, and agreed to pay a fine of £10,000 plus £4,285 costs.
Having agreed to pay this amount, he then failed to do so, was expelled from the ICAEW on 6 March 2024, and as a result he can no longer call himself a chartered accountant or use the initials ACA.
Chris Bailey has sent me a statement in which he denies any wrongdoing, but says he lost all his emails and so couldn’t prove he’d obtained the clients’ authorisation. He doesn’t explain why he didn’t respond to the ICAEW’s emails for six months. Bailey says he appealed; that’s not what the ICAEW told me, and seems inconsistent with the fact that he agreed to the reprimand and fine.
Bailey’s explanation for not paying the fine is that Barclays erroneously restricted access to his accounts. It’s unclear how that could have happened without Bailey being aware of it.
And Bailey says he’s in the process of rejoining the ICAEW. However the ICAEW told me it’s not aware of an application from him.
An ICAEW spokesperson told me:
“Christopher Bailey has ceased to be an ICAEW member and this decision will be included in our next monthly Disciplinary Orders and Regulatory Decisions publication, in line with our processes.
“We encourage anyone who thinks they have had contact with someone holding themselves out as an ICAEW member when their membership has been cessated to contact our Professional Standards department.”
Because Bailey’s membership has ceased, the ICAEW says (not unreasonably) it’s not in the public interest to pursue our complaint about Bailey’s actions, but I expect they will take our complaint forward if/when Bailey applies to be readmitted.
ACCA
At around the same time, Bailey was disciplined by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants for failing to provide audit files when requested. He provided a series of excuses for this: he first said he needed more time, then claimed the clients were audit-exempt, then claimed the files were offsite, and finally blamed a software issue. He was found guilty of misconduct and severely reprimanded.
The ACCA accepted that the failure to disclose was not deliberate; it is not clear how they came to this conclusion, given his successive contradictory excuses.
Some time after the ACCA decision, Bailey’s ACCA membership ceased.
4 responses to “Less Tax for Landlords’ tax guru expelled from the ICAEW”
I had assumed that this was akin to a doctor being struck off and that it would prevent him from working. It will not, he just cannot use the designation Chartered Accountant.
Am I right in thinking this the first disciplinary measure against one of the malefactors you have publicised?
Even if relating to a matter before you got involved.
It’s good to see at least something happening.
correct! But, as you say, entirely unrelated to the matters we’ve reported on
This very sorry story bears out the Government’s decision to regulate the tax profession. I think the current consultation document represents a serious approach to this issue, and I welcome Government starting to deal with a huge variety of issues with unscrupulous tax agents and advisors. But of course the current proposal to require anyone dealing with HMRC on behalf of a client would not stop this early enough – it is good news that the professional bodies have dealt with this individual but my view is that we need to be more ‘upstream’ of these people. I think that is an aspiration that will be difficult to fulfil, but it is worth considering.