Responsibilities to an ex

This is a summary of a response to a Readers’ forum question in Taxation magazine. The response was published on 31 October 2025.

An adviser provided tax services to a husband (H), wife (W) and their partnership. The husband and wife divorced and the partnership became a sole trade business run by H. H advised the accountant that there were suppressed partnership profits and that he needed to make a disclosure to HMRC but that he did not want W involved, possibly for reasons relating to the divorce settlement.

The question was what, if any, responsibilities did the adviser have towards W.

The ex-wife is not the client and you want to therefore do your best for the husband. However, as a past client, you may feel a sense of responsibility for her.

When we have done disclosures this way in the past – one spouse declaring and paying tax on both spouses’ income – HMRC has accepted one party paying for both as the party paying generally has a higher tax rate. However in those cases, both the husband and wife have agreed that the disclosure should be filed in this way and we were acting for both clients.

As a partner in the partnership, the ex-wife is technically jointly and severally responsible for the partnership tax returns (unless there is evidence to show otherwise). Therefore, if the disclosure includes amending partnership returns, then arguably as a partner in a 50/50 partnership, the wife would need to be told as her approval would be needed to file the returns.

It is not your responsibility to tell the ex-wife however unless you are also acting for the partnership (i.e. filing the amended returns) and in that case, you would be speaking with her as a partner in the partnership or liaising with her adviser. Either way the wife would become aware of the situation.

Even if the husband disclosed all the income, if partnership returns are amended, HMRC’s systems would likely flag up that the ex-wife had not declared her share and then open an enquiry into her affairs. If she is then unaware of the disclosure, this could result in over-payment of tax at best (i.e. both H&W paying tax on W’s profit share), and lengthy, expensive and stressful tax investigations at worst. Either way, she would then become aware of the suppressed profits and may revert to her divorce lawyer to review the settlement.

When preparing the disclosure, our view is that the figures should only reflect the husband’s share unless the wife has agreed to your representing her and/or that the disclosure should include her share.

All things considered, it is best for the husband to tell the ex-wife and for them both to file a disclosure each.

As for your obligations as an adviser, since the wife is no longer a client and the partnership no longer exists, you are not obliged to tell her anything (and in the interests of your client’s confidentiality, you shouldn’t).

Share: