{"id":17468,"date":"2012-09-24T08:28:16","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T07:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=17468"},"modified":"2012-09-24T08:28:16","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T07:28:16","slug":"the-reality-of-hmrc-and-the-tax-gap-is-theyre-losing-because-they-dont-have-the-people-to-do-the-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/09\/24\/the-reality-of-hmrc-and-the-tax-gap-is-theyre-losing-because-they-dont-have-the-people-to-do-the-job\/","title":{"rendered":"The reality of HMRC and the tax gap is they’re losing because they don’t have the people to do the job"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Guardian reports this morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The number of\u00a0tax\u00a0evasion cases being pursued by HM Revenue & Customs has fallen to its lowest level in five years.<\/p>\n

Lawyers Pinsent Masons said the number of serious tax evasion cases \u2014 with more than \u00a350,000 of suspected tax evasion \u2014 had fallen by a quarter in the past year. Meanwhile the number of raids undertaken in the 2011-12 tax year has risen to 499 from 196 in the 2010-11 tax year.<\/p>\n

In 2011-12 there were 3,346 suspected\u00a0tax avoidance\u00a0cases, down from the 4,506 in 2010-11, according to data compiled by the law firm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Definitions matter of course on just what a case is, but in this case so long as consitent defintions are used the message here is very loud and very clear: HMRC\u00a0simply don't have the resources to do the job of tackling the tax gap. Some of us have been saying so for some time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In that light, Danny\u00a0Alexander's claim<\/a> he's cracking down\u00a0because he's reallocating 100 tax inspectors to an \"affluence unit\" looks to be exactly what it is - a sham.<\/p>\n

And the government's\u00a0challenge to tax avoiders is shown to be utterly hollow. People have a right to be very angry about that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Guardian reports this morning: The number of\u00a0tax\u00a0evasion cases being pursued by HM Revenue & Customs has fallen to its lowest level in five
 Read the full article…<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tax-avoidance","category-tax-evasion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17468","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=17468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}