Dividend Data vs Pure Tax Investigations

Comprehensive Spreadsheet Functions

Dividend Data provides 16 custom functions tailored for in-depth stock analysis directly within your spreadsheet. Formulas like DIVIDENDDATA_DIVIDENDS, DIVIDENDDATA_RATIOS, and DIVIDENDDATA_QUOTE allow you to retrieve specific data points such as forward yield, ex-dividend dates, P/E ratios, and current stock prices instantly. This transforms static spreadsheets into dynamic, auto-updating financial models, saving hours of manual data collection and ensuring your analysis is always based on the latest available information.

Extensive Historical Data Library

The platform offers an unparalleled depth of historical financial data, covering over 80,000 global tickers with more than 30 years of market history. This allows investors to conduct robust long-term trend analysis, calculate multi-year dividend growth rates, examine financial performance across market cycles, and backtest investment strategies. Having decades of data at your fingertips is foundational for making informed, evidence-based investment decisions rather than relying on short-term trends.

Dual-Platform Compatibility

Dividend Data works seamlessly in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, catering to the preferred workflow of every investor. The Google Sheets add-on is available on the Google Workspace Marketplace, and the Microsoft Excel add-in is listed on Microsoft AppSource. This cross-platform functionality ensures that whether you collaborate in the cloud with Sheets or prefer the advanced capabilities of desktop Excel, your access to live financial data remains consistent and reliable.

Free Tier with Generous Credits

A key differentiator is the accessible free forever plan, which provides 2,500 credits per month without requiring a credit card or facing a trial expiration. This allows new users to thoroughly test the platform's capabilities and individual investors to perform a significant amount of monthly analysis at no cost. It lowers the barrier to entry for high-quality data, aligning with the mission to serve fundamental investors who need professional tools without a professional budget.

Specialist Intermediary Role

Pure Tax Investigations positions itself as a dedicated buffer between the client and HMRC. This means the experienced team handles all direct communication, negotiation, and correspondence with the tax authority. This foundational feature ensures the client's interests are professionally represented, reducing personal stress and preventing missteps that could escalate the situation during sensitive investigations or disclosure processes.

Expertise in Serious Civil Investigations

The service has deep, specialised knowledge in handling the most severe HMRC civil enquiries, namely Code of Practice 9 (COP9) and Code of Practice 8 (COP8). COP9 cases involve suspected tax fraud, while COP8 tackles complex avoidance arrangements. The team's expertise includes understanding the procedural nuances, managing the Contractual Disclosure Facility (CDF), and formulating strategic responses to these in-depth and intrusive investigations to secure the best possible outcome.

Comprehensive Tax Disclosure Management

Pure Tax Investigations guides clients through various voluntary disclosure facilities to regularise their tax affairs before HMRC launches an investigation. This includes managing disclosures under the Worldwide Disclosure Facility (WDF) for offshore matters, the Let Property Campaign (LPC) for rental income, and specific disclosures for crypto assets or Indian investment income. This proactive feature helps clients correct past errors under favourable terms.

Bespoke, Client-Centric Advice

The approach is not generic. The team begins by listening to understand the unique complexities of each client's financial and business situation. Advice is then tailored pragmatically, focusing on clear, actionable steps. This foundational principle ensures solutions are commercially sensible and aligned with the client's personal and business aspirations, rather than offering a one-size-fits-all template.

Building a Dividend Growth Screener

Investors can use Dividend Data functions to create a custom stock screening spreadsheet. By pulling data like dividend yield, payout ratio, 5-year dividend growth rate, and PE ratio for a watchlist, you can filter and rank companies based on your specific criteria for quality and value. This automates the initial research phase, allowing you to quickly identify potential investment candidates that meet your disciplined strategy directly within a familiar, customizable environment.

Automating Portfolio Tracking and Analysis

Manually updating a portfolio spreadsheet with current prices, dividend payments, and yield-on-cost is a repetitive task. With Dividend Data, you can link your holdings to live data feeds. Formulas can automatically pull the latest price to calculate current value, fetch declared dividends to forecast income, and update key ratios to monitor the financial health of your holdings, giving you a real-time dashboard of your investment performance.

Conducting Deep Fundamental Research

When analyzing a specific company, you need consolidated access to its financial statements and key metrics. Using Dividend Data, you can build a detailed research model in a spreadsheet that pulls in annual and quarterly income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, and dozens of profitability, liquidity, and leverage ratios. This creates a single source of truth for your analysis, enabling you to evaluate business performance and valuation thoroughly.

Educational Modeling and Backtesting

For investors learning fundamental analysis or testing investment theories, Dividend Data serves as an excellent educational tool. You can build historical models to see how a company's stock price correlated with its earnings growth over time, or reconstruct a dividend aristocrat's payout history to study its consistency. This hands-on access to real data reinforces investment principles and allows for practical, data-driven learning.

Navigating a Code of Practice 9 (COP9) Investigation

A business owner receives a letter from HMRC opening an investigation under COP9, indicating suspicion of tax fraud. This is a critical situation with potential for serious penalties. Pure Tax Investigations steps in to manage the process, advise on the contractual disclosure facility, liaise with HMRC, and prepare a robust disclosure report to settle the matter civilly and avoid criminal prosecution.

Making a Voluntary Disclosure via the Worldwide Disclosure Facility (WDF)

An individual with previously undisclosed income from offshore investments or bank accounts wishes to become tax compliant. Pure Tax Investigations assists in preparing and submitting a full disclosure under the WDF, calculating the tax, interest, and penalties due, and managing the process with HMRC to secure a finalised agreement and achieve closure.

Responding to an HMRC Compliance Check

A company receives a notice that HMRC is conducting a compliance check into its recent Corporation Tax return. While perhaps routine, it can be burdensome. Pure Tax Investigations handles the enquiry, gathers and presents the required information professionally, and ensures the company's position is defended correctly to prevent the check from escalating into a wider investigation.

Defending Against an Inheritance Tax Enquiry

The executors of an estate face an HMRC enquiry into the valuation of assets or the application of reliefs for Inheritance Tax purposes. Pure Tax Investigations provides specialist support, analysing the technical aspects of domicile, trust structures, or property valuations to defend the estate's position and negotiate a fair settlement with HMRC.

Dividend Data is a powerful financial data platform designed to bring institutional-grade stock market information directly into the tools investors already use every day: Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. At its core, it eliminates the tedious, error-prone process of manually copying and pasting data from financial websites. Instead, it provides a suite of simple, custom spreadsheet formulas that pull live, accurate data directly into your cells with a single keystroke. Built specifically for dividend and fundamental investors by a fellow investor, the service grants instant access to over 30 years of historical data for more than 80,000 tickers. This includes critical metrics like dividend amounts, yields, payout ratios, growth rates, full financial statements, earnings, valuation ratios, and price history—over 100 data points in total. Its standout value proposition is democratizing high-quality data; it offers a permanently free tier with 2,500 monthly credits, requiring no API keys or coding knowledge. This makes sophisticated stock analysis accessible to individual investors without the complex infrastructure or high costs typically associated with professional financial data feeds.

Pure Tax Investigations is a specialist advisory service dedicated to resolving complex tax disputes and investigations for businesses and entrepreneurial clients. At its core, the service acts as an independent, expert intermediary between a client and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). The fundamental purpose is to robustly defend a client's interests during what can be an overwhelming and intrusive process. The service is specifically designed for individuals and companies facing serious HMRC scrutiny, including deep investigations under Code of Practice 9 (COP9) for suspected fraud, Code of Practice 8 (COP8) for complex tax avoidance, compliance checks, and specialist disclosures. With over 20 years of experience led by specialist Amit Puri, the team provides a pragmatic, tailored approach. The main value proposition is clear: to alleviate the significant stress of tax compliance issues by providing bespoke, knowledgeable guidance that navigates regulatory complexities, protects client wealth, and achieves commercial resolutions.

How does the free tier work and what are credits?

The free tier provides 2,500 credits each month, which renew automatically. Credits are consumed each time a Dividend Data formula recalculates in your spreadsheet. A simple formula fetching one data point, like a current price, typically uses one credit. More complex historical data requests may use slightly more. This system allows you to perform substantial analysis for free, and you can monitor your usage within your account dashboard.

Do I need to know how to code or set up an API?

No coding or API setup is required. Dividend Data is designed for simplicity. After installing the add-in for Google Sheets or Excel, you simply use the custom formulas like any native spreadsheet function. You type =DIVIDENDDATA_QUOTE("TICKER", "price") and the live data appears. The platform handles all the complex data connections and updates in the background for you.

What kind of data can I access with the spreadsheet functions?

You can access a wide array of data points crucial for fundamental and dividend investing. This includes dividend dates and amounts, forward yield, payout ratios, dividend growth rates, full financial statements (income, balance sheet, cash flow), key ratios (P/E, P/B, Debt/Equity), earnings metrics, real-time and historical prices, market capitalization, and over 100 other specific metrics. The documentation provides a complete list of all available functions and arguments.

Is my data secure and private?

Yes. Dividend Data uses secure, encrypted connections for all data transfers. Importantly, when you use the spreadsheet add-ins, your stock tickers and data requests are processed securely, but your personal portfolio holdings and spreadsheet contents are not stored or accessible on Dividend Data's servers. Your financial models and private data remain within your own spreadsheet files.

What is the difference between a compliance check and a tax investigation?

A compliance check is typically a review by HMRC to confirm the information on a tax return is correct and complete. It is often routine. A tax investigation is more serious and invasive, usually triggered by suspicion of error, omission, or deliberate wrongdoing. Investigations like COP8 or COP9 are formal, in-depth processes examining records and transactions across multiple years.

When should I seek specialist help for a tax investigation?

You should seek specialist help immediately upon receiving any formal communication from HMRC that indicates an enquiry, check, or investigation. Early intervention is crucial. A specialist can ensure you respond appropriately from the start, protect your rights, and prevent the situation from worsening. Do not wait until the investigation becomes more complex.

What does the process involve under Code of Practice 9 (COP9)?

Under COP9, HMRC suspects tax fraud but offers a chance to settle civilly. The process involves accepting HMRC's terms to make a full disclosure under the Contractual Disclosure Facility (CDF). You must then prepare a detailed report admitting all irregularities, calculating what is owed. A specialist guides this entire process, negotiates with HMRC, and aims to avoid criminal proceedings.

Can you help if I have already started dealing with HMRC myself?

Yes. It is very common for individuals or businesses to contact Pure Tax Investigations after initially attempting to handle an HMRC enquiry themselves. The team can take over immediately, review what has been submitted, correct any missteps, and establish a proper defence strategy. It is never too late to get expert representation.

Dividend Data is a specialized financial data service that provides historical and current stock market information directly within spreadsheet applications like Google Sheets and Excel. It falls into the category of fundamental investment research tools, designed specifically to streamline analysis for income-focused investors. Users often seek alternatives for various reasons, including budget constraints, the need for different feature sets, or compatibility with other platforms like proprietary software or different data visualization tools. When evaluating different services, it's crucial to consider your core investment strategy. A dividend growth investor will prioritize different metrics than a value or technical trader. Key factors include the depth and historical range of the financial data offered, the ease of integration into your existing workflow, and the overall cost structure relative to your usage needs. The goal is to find a tool that provides reliable, actionable data without unnecessary complexity or expense. Ultimately, the right alternative should feel like a natural extension of your research process, delivering the specific metrics you need in a format you can immediately use. It's about finding a balance between comprehensive data access, usability, and value, ensuring the tool saves you time and enhances your decision-making rather than creating more work.

Pure Tax Investigations is a professional service in the business and finance category that provides expert defense and tailored solutions for individuals and businesses facing complex tax disputes or HMRC investigations. Clients often seek alternatives for various reasons, such as differing budget requirements, the need for a specific service not offered, or a preference for a different advisory style or firm size. When evaluating other services, it is crucial to consider several key factors. Look for a provider with proven experience in handling serious HMRC enquiries, including specialized cases. Ensure they offer clear communication and a pragmatic approach to resolving your specific tax situation, much like the foundational support described for such services.