From IFAonline:"An HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) debt collection officer has been jailed after pleading guilty to stealing almost £85,000 from taxpayers.
Geoffrey Eley, 44, who worked collecting overdue payments from taxpayers, has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison at Hereford Crown Court, the Redditch Advertiser reports.
Between 2001 and 2007, Eley visited businesses and individuals door-to-door, taking cash payments from 15 taxpayers which he then pocketed.
He conned taxpayers with photocopies of official HMRC receipts, leading them to believe they had settled their debts with HMRC.
Eley, a serving HMRC officer of almost 27 years, stole a total of £84,950 while individual amounts taken from taxpayers ranged from £1,000 to £28,904.
He attempted to cover his tracks by crediting the duped taxpayers' accounts with cheque payments received from unconnected third party taxpayers.
Joff Parsons, head of HMRC's internal governance criminal investigations, says: "HMRC expects the highest standards of behaviour from its staff.
"Eley abused his position of trust for personal gain.
"We will relentlessly pursue anyone who attempts to steal from public funds and they will face criminal sanctions."
He says HMRC has taken steps to ensure similiar abuses can not take place.
"Corruption amongst our staff is rare and will not be tolerated.""
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Hmmm. Any corrupt HMRC staff reading this?
ReplyDeleteSettle my corporation tax with money from somebody else's account and I'll make it worth your while. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Well done HMRC for catching this scumbag.
ReplyDeleteOne point though:
"Corruption amongst our staff is rare and will not be tolerated."
How can you be sure, your systems/procedures are not that reliable.
I am not sure that corruption is rife but what is true is that those at the top get away with it, either by taking early retirement or by investigations being held up or even avoided. There is a man who lives near me, now retired, who boasts in the pub that he went round the world playing golf while working for HMRC all at the expense of Private Companies. I know of people who have taken their wife on trips abroad - again without paying. If all of the corruption was publicised everyone would see that the organisation is rotten at the top and has been for several years. This is why the likes of Mr Parsons throw up the odd little fish (lot of money but he's relatively junior) - to hide the major fiddlers.
ReplyDeleteIn HMRC as elsewhere those that have money and position get away with it. For example how many prosecutions have there been for off-shore tax evasion - can anyone name one? How does it compare to the number for Child Benefit Fraud? Anyone at HMRC care to answer?
What about Hartnett - according to the Civil service code he ought not accept hospitality from third parties whose affairs he has to manage or where his actions might give rise to compromise with his official position. He's out at others expense twice a week. In a decent Civil Service, where you have to be seen to be whiter than white, this would not be tolerated. Now - no-one cares.
They will not get away with it for much longer. I urge anyone who knows anything to use sites like this to spill the beans. Do not blow the whistle internally because they will see that it goes nowhere.
"Corruption amongst our staff is rare and will not be tolerated."
ReplyDeleteIt is rare and will not be tolerated, FFS in the CC's we cant even pee for more than 2 mins without being bullied by the management.
Corruption among the staff will not be tolerated buts its ok for Dave Hartnett to go on his lunch with corrupt bankers like J P Morgan and Goldman Sachs, who are under criminal investigation. The management need to be investigated for corruption and how they have ruined junior staffs lives through bullying, character assassination and threats.
ReplyDeleteI had a caller asking if her tax return had been processed. Turns out we hadn't needed a tax return for over 10 years and had never received a return in all that time. The accountant had been taking £600 a year to 'file her returns'.
ReplyDeleteAccountants, never accountable
"Corruption amongst our staff is rare and will not be tolerated."
ReplyDeleteThis means that they rarely catch anyone so carry on people.
1990's-What about the tax inspector in County Durham who had a £40k extension built for £10k, by the brother of a man he was investigating.
ReplyDeleteThere are about 70,000 people working at HMRC, down from 100,000 plus.
ReplyDeleteWhere I work - we have approx 800 staff trying to deal with 120,000 pieces of post. On average a member of staff will clear between 100-120 pieces of post a week. (80,000 to 96,000) so you would think we would clear it relatively quickly.
Except that by the time the staff have dealt with 80% of the post, the remaining 20% have written in asking for a follow up or complaint therefore adding to the tail.
L**our and C******tives and L** D*****ats all pledged cuts to the civil service and the public supported it because it was a headline grabber.
HMRC going slightly wrong is the LEAST of the public's problems.
There's rotten apples in every barrel-yes even the accountancy profession.
ReplyDeleteMr Charalambous now serving time for an £11m tax fraud.