HMRC has published a map of where they have prosecuted people for tax offences. It's interesting. This is one extract:
Have they forgotten most of Wales?
Scroll right and it looks like East Anglia is off the map too:
And what about Wiltshire, Dorset, the Isle of Wight, Sussex and more:
And much of Scotland:
Please don't tell me that non one lives in these places.
Could it instead be that after all the local office closures HMRC can now only afford to operate in London, Birmingham, the West Midlands, Manchester and their environs? It looks like it. In which case I am very worried.
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More likely there’s an area around Norwich where the Tax Avenger lives and nobody dare avoid their fare share! I wonder if the Tax Avenger will be un-masked.
Considr how smalla percentage of people get prosecuted for tax offences. Heck, consider how few tax evaders that have been caught get prosecuted!
These little blue splodges are on the major poulation centres. Scotland in particular, the population is very focussed on the central belt.
This map may only indiacte a that a small number get prosecuted and they will most likely be in London, birmingham etc and not Wymondham, Blair Athol and Coniston.
Yes…..but I think the figures deeply disproportionate
Look at the difference between central Scotland and Greater Manchester
Why?
Perhaps you should research whether there is a corrolation between office closures and the gaps in the maps? You could then seek a response from HMRC to your findings.
Are you not paid handsomely to do ‘Tax research’? This blog is conjecture.
I am finite
I work more than 12 hours a day now
How many more would you like?
You blog often, and reply to most responses. Your work ethic cannot be questioned. It is remarkable.
But often ‘less is more’. Others blog a lot less, but what they write is more consistently researched and referenced. As a consequence they have better discussions which follow (haven’t you noticed that your comment threads are 90% trolls or sycophants?).
For all your blogging efforts, it’s your tax gap reports that continue to have the most impact on the popular debate. They came from genuine research, with documented methodology.
I am not sure who my ‘sycophants’ are. It’s pretty insulting to call people who might agree with me as such
And as for ‘less’, I am sure many oppponents would love that
What you’re suggesting is I write something every year or so. And that it then be read like the average academic paper maybe six times
Why? There have been 68,000 reads here in the last week. I’d suggest that at least as useful. And it’s not going to happen
From the same article:
“In Newcastle, a group of five tax cheats who benefited to the tune of £356,287 were jailed for a total four years and four months.
“A VAT repayment case involving £22,223 also resulted in a Blyth fraudster being jailed for 17 weeks.
“In Sunderland a VAT suppression investigation involving around £56,000 resulted in one person being sentenced to nine months in prison.
“HMRC chief executive Lin Homer said: “We are prosecuting more tax cheats every year and targeting more trades and professions where we have identified that tax revenue is at risk.”
Of course people who don’t play by the rules need to be dealt with – so why is it impossible to sentence people who used HSBC’s help to do what they did?