Readers' forum : Blindsided

I have acted for many years for one of my largest clients whose tax return for 2017-18 I am now completing. He has advised that he made a substantial disposal in 2017-18 after taking specialist advice. I am told all I need to do is make the necessary entries in his return to disclose his capital gain (about £4m) and to claim entrepreneurs’ relief so that he pays tax at only 10%. I have asked to see the specialist advice but he said that it had already cost him a fortune and did not want to incur further costs. The client said he had sought the specialist advice more than two years before the disposal and that he had followed the advice every step of the way so there was no role for me other than ‘completing the right boxes’ as he put it. It seems the client...