{"id":16397,"date":"2012-07-13T16:34:52","date_gmt":"2012-07-13T15:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=16397"},"modified":"2012-07-13T16:34:52","modified_gmt":"2012-07-13T15:34:52","slug":"half-of-people-in-the-uk-would-cheat-on-tax-if-they-thought-they-could-get-away-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/07\/13\/half-of-people-in-the-uk-would-cheat-on-tax-if-they-thought-they-could-get-away-with-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Half of people in the UK would cheat on tax if they thought they could get away with it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.moneysavingexpert.com\/poll\/22-06-2012\/would-you-avoid-tax-if-you-could\" target=\"_blank\">MoneySavingExpert.com has run a poll<\/a> on people's\u00a0attitude\u00a0to tax cheating in the light of Jimmy Carr's escapades. The results are fascinating, although of course not\u00a0scientific\u00a0as the sample was self\u00a0selected\u00a0from those with a bias to save money:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Screen-shot-2012-07-13-at-16.26.33.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16398\" title=\"Screen shot 2012-07-13 at 16.26.33\" src=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Screen-shot-2012-07-13-at-16.26.33.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"561\" height=\"303\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Screen-shot-2012-07-13-at-16.26.33.png 561w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Screen-shot-2012-07-13-at-16.26.33-300x162.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 561px) 100vw, 561px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Oddly the stats match almost exactly a survey HMRC was inclined to quote a few years back that was undertaken in Canada. there they found 10% would cheat, 40% could be persuaded to comply and 50% would do so just about whatever\u00a0happened. Here that's 10:45:45 (near enough).<\/p>\n<p>What are the lessons? I have to say I think they're\u00a0obvious. What is very clear is that people will only cheat if they think they will get away with it. So what we need are many more staff at HMRC to make sure people can't get away with it.<\/p>\n<p>The solution is so simple it's amazing the\u00a0government\u00a0doesn't listen. Because they don't I have to come to the conclusion they want a deficit and to<a title=\"The untold truth about quantitative easing is it simply cancels debt \u2014 and that means national debt is now just 45.1% of GDP\" href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/07\/13\/the-untold-truth-about-quantitative-easing-is-it-simply-cancels-debt-and-that-means-national-debt-is-now-just-45-1-of-gdp\/\" target=\"_blank\"> pretend we are in debt<\/a> than is\u00a0actually\u00a0the case instead of wanting to tackle the tax gap to pay for the public services we all need.<\/p>\n<p>If this survey shows\u00a0anything\u00a0it says this problem is self made by the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MoneySavingExpert.com has run a poll on people&#8217;s\u00a0attitude\u00a0to tax cheating in the light of Jimmy Carr&#8217;s escapades. The results are fascinating, although of course not\u00a0scientific\u00a0as the<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/07\/13\/half-of-people-in-the-uk-would-cheat-on-tax-if-they-thought-they-could-get-away-with-it\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,55,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tax-avoidance","category-tax-evasion","category-tax-gap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}