Help! Tax Evasion

Legacy_user

Hi, How do you register for tax.

Pennywise

With all the tax office reorganisations of the past decade or so, HMRC had become very lax but there are signs that they've finally got their act together and are now actively pursuing people again.

When I first started as an accountant 30 years ago, we had truly local tax inspectors who lived and worked in most towns, and they tended to keep an eye open for new shops opening, new traders vans, etc., and would keep a note to check for tax returns etc a year or two later, and one infamous local inspector used to sit in various pubs counting customers buying drinks and putting coins in the machines and then checking against taking records at the year end.

I think that kind of thing has gone forever now that we have centralised tax offices dealing with people hundreds of miles away, so there's now very little local knowledge. Instead, they're getting up to speed with checking computer databases against eachother, i.e. tax credits against income tax, or stamp duty against landlord tax, etc etc, i.e. more intelligence based rather than local observation.

It's always been a puzzle just how poorly all govt depts have related to eachother - you would have thought that it would be easy, if not automatic, to check a housing benefit claimants declared income against a tax return or employment records, but apparently it's all had to be done manually in the past, and only upon specific intelligence, i.e. such as being reported by the public. However, I think the penny has finally dropped and they're starting to communicate with eachother properly these days.

taxsaver

Aldous Huxley would be so proud of them!

pqrdef

Pennywise wrote: »

you would have thought that it would be easy, if not automatic, to check a housing benefit claimants declared income against a tax return or employment records, but apparently it's all had to be done manually in the past

That would have been the great "benefit" of ID cards - all your records would have been linked by your ID card number, so that any petty council clerk could instantly run off a full report of your entire lifestyle. Postponed for a while now.

CLAPTON

pqrdef wrote: »

That would have been the great "benefit" of ID cards - all your records would have been linked by your ID card number, so that any petty council clerk could instantly run off a full report of your entire lifestyle. Postponed for a while now.

sure
seems only fair that tax and benefit fraud should be optional; always good to see all those programs about chavs cheating the system drinking lager all day having lots of kids and having a work free income for more than the average wage

after all its a victimless crime

moonrakerz

pqrdef wrote: »

That would have been the great "benefit" of ID cards

No it wasn't ! they were to stop all the immigrants :rotfl:

tillycat123

Where I live it's the tradesmen that drive the flash cars, have the flash holidays their kids have the latest stuff. I bet there would be not many of them though that on paper have a very high income to be taxed on. If the tax office gave a list of poorly paid jobs based on the figures they received from tradesmen I'm sure plumbers would be amongst them, what a joke!

jjuk26

The Tax office are activley seeking gas engineers and plumbers now, i have just received a standard letter from them and it has gone to all gas engineers registered on the gas safe website.

JJ

property.advert

If people were taxed fairly, then they would happily pay. Ask too much and people will decide to non conform and pay nothing.

diable

dburford9 wrote: »

Hi, I know someone who has avoided paying tax for 7 years, they work full time getting paid cash in hand as a plumber. I am thinking of reporting them but firstly I have a question:

Do HM Revenue and Customs actively look for people avoiding tax? Surely it would be relatively simple to do....Surely there is some database with everyone in the UK listed on it and from looking at that they could find out quite easily which ones are unemployed and who have been unemployed for a while which more than likely means they are either homeless, very rich or evading tax.

If they don't do this then why not? What do they do to search for tax evaders?

Thanks.

Do you have proof they don't pay tax? They maybe registered as a Limited Company and may be paying their tax also if they are doing some jobs cash in hand then they may be reducing the prices by 20% and not charging VAT.

Any reason for wanting to be a snitch?

Swiftkidd

dburford9 wrote: »

Hi, I know someone who has avoided paying tax for 7 years, they work full time getting paid cash in hand as a plumber. I am thinking of reporting them but firstly I have a question:

Do HM Revenue and Customs actively look for people avoiding tax? Surely it would be relatively simple to do....Surely there is some database with everyone in the UK listed on it and from looking at that they could find out quite easily which ones are unemployed and who have been unemployed for a while which more than likely means they are either homeless, very rich or evading tax.

If they don't do this then why not? What do they do to search for tax evaders?

Thanks.

Mind if I ask, What do you personally gain by selling your own neighbour out just curious. Generally speaking I'd say it's none of your business and you should concentrate living your own life .