HMRC Is Shite: amnesty

Showing posts with label amnesty. Show all posts

Friday, 24 July 2015

Yields Disappoint

It seems that HMRC has thus far only collected around £13.9M from secret bank accounts in the Crown Dependencies.

The Treasury expectations had been much higher, £320M by now, with a long term expectation of around £1BN.

The FT reports that just over 400 people have so far come forward to own up to previously undeclared accounts in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. They used a ‘disclosure facility’ that offered reduced penalties to former tax evaders.

Fiona Fernie of Pinsent Masons said that taxpayers with large amounts of unpaid tax were likely to be making use of another tax amnesty, known as the Liechtenstein disclosure facility (LDF), which offered better terms and immunity from prosecution.

The LDF had raised just under £1.1bn from 5819 disclosures by the end of March.

Ms Fernie said another possible explanation of the low yield was that the scale of tax evasion across the Crown Dependencies was not as extensive as many assumed.

“There is likely to be some non-compliance, but more often than not it will be technical in nature — or based on simple mistakes rather than non-legitimate structures.”

Maybe not quite so many people aren't quite as dishonest as HMRC and the Treasury had hoped for?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Friday, 6 July 2012

HMRC Offers Amnesty

HMRC have relented a little on their stance wrt late submissions (ie non submissions) of self-assessment forms for tax years 2010 and earlier, and have launched the "Tax Return Initiative".

The Telegraph reports that people who have not completed self-assessment forms will be given three months to declare untaxed income earned before 2010. Those who fess up will be given reduced penalties of £200, plus a fine equivalent to 10% of the unpaid tax.

This is a significant mollification of HMRC's normal stance on late/non submissions. Fines are normally up to 100% of unpaid tax, and spot fines can be more than £1,000.

Taxpayers (not "customers") who do not make use of the amnesty to fess up will face aggressive criminal prosecutions.

HMRC will write anyone who should be paying tax at 40% or 50% but has failed to comply with a request to fill in a self-assessment tax return for the tax year 2009-10 or earlier.

The “Tax Return Initiative” has a deadline of Oct 2.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Thursday, 21 January 2010

Our Man In Washington

Despite the comments on this site, and the results of staff surveys, not everyone in HMRC loathes their job.

It is refreshing to see that Dave Hartnett is like a veritable "pig in shit" when it comes to his role of "opening up" countries to HMRC inspections, and acting as the UK's envoy in Washington next week at a gathering of tax commissioners.

He is quoted in Accountancy Age:

"Nations are now working together to deal with this issue.

What [HMRC] would really like to do is open up Switzerland.

The UK and many other governments are determined to crush tax evasion through offshore accounts and I think that's what will happen. Otherwise he may find himself posted to places that are less salubrious than Washington.

There are some countries who are resistant.

One or two tax havens would like to be back on an OECD blacklist so they can hoover up money from other people who still want to hide it."

Hartnett doesn't like countries who believe in banking and tax secrecy, adding:

"They believe that a country like the UK should have a major amnesty – not just a disclosure regime – where we forgive [unpaid] taxes and use that to make disclosures, which I don't think the UK is going to do."

Such ambition!

He bestrides the world of tax, like a veritable colossus!

Let us trust that he has not promised his bankrupt masters in Downing Street more than he (and HMRC) can actually/realistically deliver in his/their lifetimes.

Hubris is such an unforgiving mistress!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Futile Arse Covering

Dave Hartnett continues to do the rounds, as he tries to encourage people to declare offshore holdings. In a recent interview with The Telegraph he is quoted:

"My hunch, it is only a hunch, is that a disproportionately large number of your readers will be relatively wealthy, will have hidden some money offshore, and some of them are going to end up in tears because they are just not going to have thought we would be as tough as we’re going to be."

Am I wrong, or is Hartnett beginning to sound a little like Denis Healey (re his speech from the late 70's boasting about "howls of anguish")?

All very well, if Hartnett were a poltician with a political axe to grind. However, he is a civil servant and is not meant to politicise his role. In fact he almost sounds as though he would relish making the middle classes cry.

What does "relatively wealthy" actually mean?

Quite why he has a sudden desire to tear into alleged middle class tax evaders, whilst the "super rich" are able to cut private deals with HMRC seems a tad hypocritical.

The fact is HMRC do not have the resources to hunt down and investigate the alleged hundreds of thousands of middle class tax evaders, that they would have people believe exist.

This is a smoke and mirrors exercise pushed by the dying Labour administration to cover up their mismanagement of the economy and chaotic mismanagement of the merger of Customs and the Inland Revenue, by trying to make people blame the economic meltdown and government bankruptcy on the alleged hundreds and thousands of "tax evaders" who have squirrelled away billions offshore.

Those who have "squirrelled away" significant amounts of money are doubtless wealthy enough to have given up living in the UK long ago, and placed themselves out of reach of Hartnett.

This media campaign is a futile arse covering exercise.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Thursday, 5 March 2009

Amnesty II

Advice to HMRC: amnesties only work if you publicise them.

In the view of many tax professionals the last amnesty for offshore account holders was not advertised nearly enough.

This time round, with a new amnesty being proposed for offshore account holders, the professionals want a pro active advertising campaign rather than just a posting on the HMRC website.

Tax does have to be taxing.

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Tuesday, 3 February 2009

Amnesty

Now here is a piece of news that may be of interest to a few of you, "Stop Hitting Me Officer" especially who recently commented:

"Filing online?

I just put mine in a buff-coloured envelope earlier today and filed it at the Postal Orifice with a letter explaining "1 month + 8 emails + 12 telephone calls = quite enough effort trying to be allowed to register to file online so herewith paper..."

When the "penalty" arrives in the post I'll load the Purdey with buckshot and invite them to come and collect in person...."

Anyhoo, it transpires that more than a handful of people are a tad "miffed" that HMRC had not adequately publicised the fact that there was a 21 January deadline for registering for pin codes, in order to be able to file on line. Moira Stewart's nice little adverts reminding people about the 31 January online filing deadline failed to mention that rather important point.

Would this not be a cause for complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority?

Notwithstanding any official complaint to ASA, HMRC has been forced to issue an amnesty to those who missed the cut off because they registered for a pin after 21 January.

In true HMRC style, the tardy taxpayers will still receive the £100 penalty notice. However, HMRC will not enforce the fine if an appeal is lodged on the basis that a pin was not received in time.

This probably should help "Stop Hitting Me Officer". However, as those of you who are regulars will know (and have read his numerous comments on this site), he registered for a pin code well before 21 January and, despite repeated attempts (phone, email, letter etc), never received one.

Tax does have to be taxing.

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Monday, 24 November 2008

Breach of Confidentiality?

HMRC have caused a wee upset amongst the accountancy profession, when it was revealed that names of some taxpayers who failed to declare offshore banks accounts have been passed on to an independent research agency.

What happened to the concept of confidentiality and data protection?

HMRC have sent letters to some of those who came forward during last year's partial amnesty on undeclared offshore accounts. The letters say that names and telephone numbers will be passed on, unless the recipients opt out.

Would it not have been better to ask people to opt in instead?

That being said, the idea behind the research is laudable enough in that it aims to gain an understanding of customers' experience of the offshore disclosure facility.

Sadly the opt out method used by HMRC to "understand the customer's experience" is crass, and may also be a criminal offence under the 2005 Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act. HMRC guidance says information can be passed on with consent, the Data Protection Act says consent should be "a positive indication of the wishes of the data subject".

HMRC deny it breaches the act and notes that there are strict safeguards, as the research company has been subject to rigorous security checks.

However, I would say, as a general rule of thumb that people like to be asked first before being "volunteered" for eg surveys, organ donor schemes etc.

Tax does have to be taxing.

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Thursday, 20 November 2008

Poverty

"Tax Credit Casualties"
MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE

19 November 2008
Tax Credit Casualties Addressing Child Poverty
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently published a report stating that child poverty costs at least £25billion each year in losses to the Exchequer and in reduced GDP.

Thanks to the intervention of Tax Credit Casualties, just the last 33 cases they have progressed to write-off have saved those claimants £152,900 – which in turn has saved the Exchequer, as every pound saved for claimants by Tax Credit Casualties helps to reduce child poverty.

Paula Dean, Tax Credit Casualties' award-winning case worker, said: 'We will continue to help claimants fight cases where they believe overpayments were caused by HMRC's errors and we will continue to fight for an amnesty on all such overpayments. It is not in the best interest of our society to seek to recover these overpayments when recovery means children will suffer poverty. And from the work of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation it is clearly not in the interest of the public purse to push these families back into poverty.'

Tax Credit Casualties work to address child poverty by helping the victims of tax credit overpayments know their rights, and fight recovery of overpayments which are not the claimants' fault. The errors are often caused by software problems, HMRC operator error and faults inherent to the tax credit system itself. Our work helps families on low incomes having to choose between putting food on the table or shoes on their children’s feet, by repaying a debt they didn’t cause and are not responsible for.

Paula also said: "We encourage anyone else who finds themselves in this or a similar situation with tax credits to contact us via our website address which is www.TaxCC.org"

For further information contact:
Sarah McCall
National Coordinator
07947439959 (out of hours included)

Note to editors: Full details of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's report can be found at http://www.jrf.org.uk/pressroom/releases/231008.asp
Tax Credit Casualties
www.TaxCC.org

Tax does have to be taxing.

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"