Making Tax Digital gets death of 1000 cuts

Pennywise

Wayne_O_Mac wrote: »

HMRC compliance yield 2016-17:
Individuals & small busesses: £4.6bn
Mid-Sized Businesses: £3.3bn
Large Businesses: £8bn

But yes, leave business alone. They can absolutely be trusted to get it right themselves!

Please explain how forcing businesses to make 6 submissions electronically will tackle tax evasion?

Those who deliberately evade will continue to evade. MTD wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference to those set on not declaring all their income.

chrismac1

There are lots of aspects in which, in my view, high level HMRC strategy is fatally flawed. The one I have most experience of is the view that a big chunk of the tax gap comes from the element of the small business sector which files returns on time.

Anyone from HMRC reading this, this is baloney!!!

You don't have to take my word for this, HMRC. A few years ago Business Record Checks came in with massive fanfare, HMRC were going to identify the miscreants with their super intelligence, make field visits to them and a massive bounty of underdeclared tax would drop out.

The result - NADA. That is not because you looked in the wrong place, HMRC, it is because there was NOTHING MUCH TO FIND there.

Where you need to look is in the small business sector which does not bother with tax returns at all, which operates in every way possible off your radar screen. Often cash in hand or using dubious bank accounts.

That is where the small business tax gap lives, and my guess is that it probably is at least £10 billion. I personally guarantee you that NOT 1 SINGLE CLIENT of mine forms any part of this, so get lost with the hassle of these honest guys and turn up the heat on the villains.