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:
• greater clarity about when HMRC should choose to carry out criminal or civil investigations, or both
• a joined-up approach to tackling tax fraud
As well as creating FIS, HMRC also created two new directorates:
• Individuals and Small Business Compliance, and
• 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
Web page updated on 17 Mar 2025 17:15
