THE Government's clampdown on tax avoidance schemes could bankrupt many businesses and individuals, according to a Worcester tax expert .

Andrew Browne, head of tax at Bishop Fleming, which has an office in College Yard next to Worcester Cathedral, said: "This will now become the latest miss-selling scandal."

His warning came after Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs published a list of 1,200 tax avoidance schemes for which it will be applying new powers to demand payment within 90 days. Mr Browne added: "The buyers of those tax avoidance schemes will now be claiming against the professional indemnity insurance of the profession advisers who sold them those schemes. Unfortunately, many of those advisers are accountancy firms that were lured by commission payments from the creators of these tax avoidance schemes. This raises the danger of professional indemnity insurance premiums rising for the majority of accountants, like us, who refused to sell these dubious products."

Nationally, it has been estimated that HMRC's list of 1,200 targeted tax avoidance schemes puts more than 33,000 individuals and 10,000 companies on notice to pay many millions of pounds in taxes within the next 90 days.

"Most publicity has focused on the celebrities who have been drawn into these tax avoidance schemes," said Mr Browne, "but that hides the huge number of well-heeled ordinary individuals and cash-rich businesses that have also been persuaded to buy into a ‘clever formula' for avoiding tax. This could put many of those individuals and businesses into bankruptcy. New powers, expected to become law within weeks, will enable HMRC to demand full payment within 90 days of the tax they calculate to be owed from these schemes. It could take up to ten years to determine whether any of those 1,200 schemes is actually legitimate. This is a classic lesson for tax-payers, and for their professional advisers. If a tax scheme looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is."