{"id":18996,"date":"2013-01-21T10:40:33","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T10:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=18996"},"modified":"2013-01-21T10:40:33","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T10:40:33","slug":"if-the-day-of-the-rogue-accountant-and-lawyer-is-over-soon-we-should-all-celebrate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/01\/21\/if-the-day-of-the-rogue-accountant-and-lawyer-is-over-soon-we-should-all-celebrate\/","title":{"rendered":"If the day of the rogue accountant and lawyer is over soon we should all celebrate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/cb82a142-62ff-11e2-8497-00144feab49a.html#ixzz2IbKSTdHK\" target=\"_blank\">FT has reported this morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Middle-class professionals are to be targeted in a new crackdown on tax evasion promised by the chief prosecutor of England and Wales.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That sounds dramatic, as does the follow uip which says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Crown Prosecution Service will dramatically ramp up the number of tax evasion cases it takes on \u2014 with a view to prosecution \u2014 over the next two years, Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, told the Financial Times. The CPS will increase fivefold the number of tax files it handles, to 1,500 a year by 2014-15.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div>Now, I welcome this: it is time that tax prosecutions ceased to have the purely criminal\u00a0tone\u00a0relating to smuggling and related issues that recent pronouncements on the issue from\u00a0H M Revenue &amp; Customs have\u00a0highlighted\u00a0and addressed the issue of tax evasion as a crime. But I welcome even more the statement that:<\/div>\n<blockquote><p>Tax consultants who push dishonest avoidance schemes \u2014 and the professionals who invest in them \u2014 are central targets in the strategy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere have been some cases involving lawyers, some involving tax consultants, and plumbers,\u201d Mr Starmer said in an interview. \u201cWithin the ramped-up volume, it\u2019s intended that we will select cases to send a clear message as to the breadth of our coverage.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Now that is truly welcome. This market is big, and I\u00a0believe\u00a0that if the purveyors of\u00a0such\u00a0schemes are to be\u00a0targeted\u00a0the impact will be\u00a0significant, first of all in pushing people out of the amrket in the first place and second in making potentrial purchasers wary.<\/p>\n<p>If the day of the rogue\u00a0accountant\u00a0and lawyer is over we should all\u00a0celebrate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FT has reported this morning: Middle-class professionals are to be targeted in a new crackdown on tax evasion promised by the chief prosecutor of<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/01\/21\/if-the-day-of-the-rogue-accountant-and-lawyer-is-over-soon-we-should-all-celebrate\/\"><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":[10,55,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tax-avoidance","category-tax-evasion","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18996","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=18996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}