The Times has reported that HM Revenue & Customs' legal department is overwhelmed in cases right now, mainly due to the volume of offshore tax evasion they are dealing with as I understand it, and so recourse is being made (quite unusually) to using City lawyers.
Grant Thornton's ever-available Mike Warburton was available for a quote, saying:
"There will be City lawyers who will think Christmas has come early. Inspectors have started taking cases on relatively small amounts, regardless of cost and there is the potential for a great deal of taxpayers' money going off to m'learned friends."
I do seriously wonder if Mike Warburton ever manages to say something without putting his foot in it. A moment's consideration shows how crass this comment is. First, most tax cases are pursued for deterrent effect: cash recovery is always incidental. Second, we don't do cost-benefit analysis when pursuing other crime, so why here? Third, Warburton may not have noticed that times are tough in the City right now. Discounts for a steady income stream might be very high. Fourth, and as ever, it seems it does not occur to Warburton to applaud HMRC initiative in cracking down on those who commit tax evasion.
Why is that?
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“Second, we don’t do cost-benefit analysis when pursuing other crime, so why here? ”
Nonsense, the whole of the CJS is shot through with cost benefit analysis.
Andrew
Of course: but it doesn’t result in a decision to simply not pursue some crimes, it may result in a decision as to which case to pursue. What it does not mean is that because there may be a net cost to pursuing a particular class of crime that the act in question is ignored. That’s the point I was making. That’s the point Mike Warburton does not seem to get. So it was not nonsense at all.
Richard