The government has released figures showing the spike in applications ­ and warned businesses that they should not rely on the spike to claim they could not get clearances before the year end.

Applications were turned round within eight days, the taxman told Accountancy Age this week, rather than the permitted 30 days, for the first three months of the year, meaning businesses have no excuse.

Figures show the taxman processed around 1,000 more applications for clearance between January and March. There were 3,178 attempts to get CGT plans signed off this year, compared to just over 2,000 for the same period in the previous two years.

‘There were suggestions we were being swamped. Actually we noticed the increase and moved resources accordingly,’ said Chris Tailby, head of anti-avoidance at HM Revenue & Customs.

Businesses can apply for clearances for complicated schemes. The applications are often put in by large privately-owned companies.

These kinds of arrangements can involve tax of up to £20m, or sums as low as £100,000, according to Eric Gardner, statutory clearances team leader at HMRC.

The rush this year was due to the changes in taper relief, after the government overhauled CGT. The new flat rate of 18% meant those holding ‘business assets’ for more than two years now pay up to 80% more in tax.

‘There is no reason for businesses not to comply with the anti-avoidance legislation. We are not going to look kindly on people invoking backlogs at HMRC to do that,’ a spokesman for the department said.

Tailby described suggestions that there were delays as merely ‘idle speculation’.