CIOT: HMRC tax evasion task forces supported
The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) has welcomed today’s announcement that the Government are setting up a number of task forces to tackle tax evasion.
The plan is part of the Government’s £900m spending review investment to tackle tax evasion, avoidance and fraud from 2011/12, which aims to raise an additional £7bn each year by 2014/15. The first sector on the task force menu is the restaurant trade in London, with restauranteurs in Scotland and the North West next to be targeted.
Gary Ashford, Chairman of the CIOT’s Management of Taxes Sub-Committee, commented:
“This targeted tightening of the net on law breakers is welcome.
“The Chartered Institute of Taxation has long argued that more effort needs to be put into investigating and tackling people who seek to evade tax. Our members help taxpayers comply with their responsibilities under the tax system and manage their way through its complexities. As well as breaking the law, those who evade tax can gain an unfair business advantage enabling them to undercut and even drive out of business those who pay their taxes in full.
“HMRC have a range of sources of evidence available to them and we assume that they have been doing their homework so they can target their anti-evasion efforts. Careful targeting is needed as the one fear with this initiative is that those who make genuine mistakes over their tax affairs might be caught up in this drive. Such people need help, either from HMRC or from properly-qualified tax advisers.”
When the Government launched their current tax disclosure facility, the Plumbers Tax Safe Plan, in March, the CIOT highlighted1 that, alongside it, HMRC were saying that the reduced penalty rate for coming clean on undeclared tax was also on offer to those outside the plumbing trade. The facility is open until the end of May and so this offer could also be used by those in the restaurant trade who are worried about the taxman calling.
Gary Ashford added:
“Those in the restaurant trade with overseas assets may want to look at whether they might also benefit from the other current disclosure facility, the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility, which, in some circumstances, is the best option available for those making disclosures to HMRC.
“In any case, restauranteurs should take this crackdown seriously and consider if they need to talk to HMRC. With the Revenue targeting a five-fold increase in criminal prosecutions for evasion, the consequences of not clearing up tax irregularities could be grave.”
Notes to Editors
1. See press release, ‘New tax disclosure opportunity is for everyone, not just plumbers’ (1 March 2011) (www.tax.org.uk)
2. The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) is a charity and the leading professional body in the United Kingdom concerned solely with taxation. The CIOT’s primary purpose is to promote education and study of the administration and practice of taxation. One of the key aims is to achieve a better, more efficient, tax system for all affected by it – taxpayers, advisers and the authorities.
The CIOT’s comments and recommendations on tax issues are made solely in order to achieve its primary purpose: it is politically neutral in its work. The CIOT will seek to draw on its members’ experience in private practice, government, commerce and industry and academia to argue and explain how public policy objectives (to the extent that these are clearly stated or can be discerned) can most effectively be achieved.
The CIOT’s 15,400 members have the practising title of ‘Chartered Tax Adviser’ and the designatory letters ‘CTA’.
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George Crozier
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