{"id":30256,"date":"2015-08-21T07:14:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T06:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=30256"},"modified":"2015-08-21T07:14:00","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T06:14:00","slug":"is-the-taxman-really-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2015\/08\/21\/is-the-taxman-really-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the taxman really coming?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FT has a 'long read' article<\/a> this morning entitled<\/p>\n

\n
\n

HMRC: The taxman cometh<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

By Tom Burgis and Vanessa Houlder the subtitle is:<\/p>\n

\n

UK authorities vowing crackdown on tax dodgers to prove system does not favour the rich and famous<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And the essence of the argument is that the government is giving HMRC new legislation that will make it easier to prosecute tax evaders whilst (and the FT does not put it like this, but nonetheless this is the reality of what has happened) cancelling some of the proposed cuts that were meant to impact the department.<\/p>\n

But, for all the rhetoric right in the middle of the piece was the telling reality:<\/p>\n

The prospect of [new laws] also prompts concerns about who the targets might be. \u201cIf you ask people [in HMRC\u2019s criminal investigations unit] who they want to prosecute, Joe the plumber or captains of industry, they will always say captains of industry,\u201d says Ray McCann, a former senior tax inspector who is now a tax adviser at New Quadrant Partners. \u201cBut the scale of that task is monumental.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authorities tend to attempt \u201ca generational case of a big target\u201d but \u201cthese things are just so enormously resource-intensive that the Revenue just don\u2019t have the staff to do it, and a jury needs to be convinced\u201d. As a result, Mr McCann says, \u201cthe Revenue has always picked and will always pick on softer targets where fraud may be easier to prove\u201d.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
On this occasion I am sure Ray is right: it does not matter what new laws you have unless you are willing to invest serious new money in HMRC. Otherwise they are not going to have the resources to make the changes that are needed.<\/div>\n
\nAnd that I know of only one politician is<\/a>, right now, talking about giving them those resources. I wish more were. Perhaps the current discussion will win the wider support that is needed but it remains the case at present that George Osborne thinks he can collect new tax without investing real resources in HMRC. I have to say that I quite simply disagree.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FT has a ‘long read’ article this morning entitled HMRC: The taxman cometh By Tom Burgis and Vanessa Houlder the subtitle is: UK authorities
 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":[107,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hmrc","category-tax-gap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30256","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=30256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}