The SuedDeutsche Zeitung has reported (via Google translate):
The tax office in Neukölln has confiscated the stocks and balances of Chinese traders on Amazon.de and blocked their merchant accounts on the platform. Earlier, Amazon Germany had contacted the relevant dealers and suggested that the German tax authorities could act against VAT fraud, reported Chinese media. The report apparently caused panic among Chinese traders. It should come to mutual denunciations, so the tax affair could draw more circles.
This action was, of course, part of the ongoing problem of tackling VAT fraud through online trading platforms that costs the UK well over £1 billion a year in lost VAT but which it was amazingly reluctant to tackle. In Germany it is estimated that 90% of Chinese traders do not have a valid VAT number.
The German tax authorities have taken appropriate action: this trade simply needs to be stopped.
Why have HMRC never been willing to do the same?
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Because HMRC means:
Helping
May
Reduce
Collection
They just don’t want to be good at collecting tax because their political bosses don’t believe in it.
Also, with the prospect of major disruption to trade because of BREXIT, any effort to collect taxes due (do things properly) just puts up the risk of the BREXIT fiasco being passed onto voters so that a trade free for all with new partners post BREXIT will be used to create the impression that we’ve survived BREXIT and everything is OK. It will also be used so that the BREXITERS can point to how the previous EU trade deals put up the cost of items to voters. You just watch.
I admit I quite like that
” their political bosses don’t believe in it”
Yes they do. Tories like regressive taxes like VAT. They are always wanting to increase VAT. They have done it before and they would do it again if it they thought the electorate would tolerate that.
The regressive tax helps to tip the balance toward poorer people paying for everything that’s public.
Can’t argue with that Marco – but I am thinking about the ‘tax gap’ in terms of the failure to get money of the ‘big boys’ and how lax this has become. This is also a major contributing factor to the injustice of Tory VAT policy.
Is it just the collection part of that which they do not concentrate on?
Because our government is spineless.
Why indeed. The reporting hotline is a joke. Has anyone had any experience of using this “Service”?
This was from 2014 Dailit Mirror. So I could no longer find these phone case sellers. But I’m sure with a bit of digging I could come up with a similar list.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/vat-evading-chinese-firms-wiping-4657621
M
“VAT fraud through online trading platforms that costs the UK well over £1 billion a year in lost VAT but which it was amazingly reluctant to tackle.”
In the absence of a better explanation that looks to me like some sort of corruption.
It has always felt that way – especially when I was one of those involved, even if only a bit – with politicians to beg them to intervene and they too were puzzled as to why HMRC would not take action on the available and compelling evidence that this was happening.
Coz they’re cowards just like they were with letting Uber get away for so long and letting off Vodafone interest on tax settlement
It’s typical Blighty
Come down heavy on the little guy but let the big guy get away with murder
What a truly shitty system
Because their Tory lords and masters do not encourage or resource them.
Post-Brexit we won’t even have the option of concerted action on global taxation of corporations across the EU. The implication of the featured article is that Germany is currently fighting alone. Why?
Interesting that there is the narrative here that the Chinese are doing this when in reality this is a failure of EU tax implementation. Chinese online traders are not paying taxes due because they are not being asked for them.
Or am I missing something?