Hull man swindles the taxpayer out of a million

[JohnD]

A British man in Hull has been jailed for £1million sandwich shop tax fraud. He foolishly pretended to have recently opened, although he had been serving local tax officials for years.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/559045/John-Baker-dad-jailed-1million-sandwich-shop-tax-fraud

Meanwhile another British swindler has been given 178 years to pay back what she fiddled.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/490298/Nicola-Daly-jailed-for-benefit-fraud

Meanwhile, billionaire tax evaders escape prosecution.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31459067
"Tax inspectors failed to prosecute a wealthy tax cheat who did not submit returns or pay any tax for 24 years, documents seen by BBC Panorama show.

HM Revenue and Customs had concluded that Paul Bloomfield, a property investor involved in the redevelopment of Wembley Stadium, was a UK resident and liable for 20 years' tax.

Mr Bloomfield was on a list of HSBC clients with secret Swiss accounts"


Why are small-time cheats pursued relentlessly while the big-time crooks are handled with kid gloves?
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/557025/HSBC-accused-evade-tax-millions-wealthy-clients

"The details of 30,000 accounts holding almost £78 billion of assets were revealed after they were obtained by a French newspaper and analysed by a team of investigative journalists.

The documents reportedly include details of almost 7,000 British clients.

They are reported to include evidence that HSBC colluded with some clients to hide accounts from tax authorities in their home countries, according to the BBC.

HSBC reportedly gave one wealthy family a foreign credit card so they could withdraw their undeclared cash at cashpoints overseas.

Richard Brooks, a former tax inspector and author of The Great Tax Robbery, said: "I think they were a tax avoidance and tax evasion service.

"I think that's what they were offering. They knew full well that people come to them to dodge their tax liabilities."

 

[JBR]

Meanwhile another British swindler has been given 178 years to pay back what she fiddled.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/490298/Nicola-Daly-jailed-for-benefit-fraud

I'd be quite happy with that, if she had to remain in a 'debtors' prison' until the debt was paid off.

 

[Astra99]

Although I understand the sentiments, HMRC must proceed with care where billionaires are involved, simply because if they go in "with guns blazing" Mr. Billionaire will just walk out of this country, shutting down operations which puts many people on the dole and starts up again in a tax-haven. Thus, not only is the tax he should be paying totally lost, but also the tax of the employees in this country and the tax paid by his suppliers and their employees.

Mr. Fiddler, on the other hand, can safely be pursued because he does not have the means to walk out.

I know it's not fair, but that's life. No matter how much you hate it, money talks. Labour's policy of tax the rich till the pips squeak does not, and never will work. The high earners will just move out of this country or pay experts to put their money in tax avoidance (perfectly legal - it's evasion which is illegal) schemes. A good example is the Callaghan government had a top rate of tax of something ridiculous like 95%. In 1979, when Maggie came to power and slashed that top rate to 50%, more tax was collected - simply because it was no longer cost effective to pay the experts their fees to avoid the tax.

 

[JohnD]

Not all billionaires run businesses.

Those that do are more likely to keep them running and flit the country, like Philip Green, and the business will continue employing people. No-one thrown out of work.

The UK is a comfortable place to live for the super-rich. An educated workforce, cleaners and plumbers readily available, not much dangerous disease, good hospitals and clinics, safe roads, little street theft or carjacking, a mostly honest police force, not much corruption and you are unlikely to be kidnapped or machine-gunned or to be thrown in jail and have all your wealth confiscated if you fall out with the government. That's why the Russian mafioisi like to live here.

It isn't true that they'll up sticks and move to Iraq or Pakistan.

 

[Norcon]

"not much dangerous disease, good hospitals "

Hospitals are over run by foreigners who bring in diseases from their own countries.

 

[JohnD]

oh look, it's a xenophobe.

"blame the different"

Just replace the word "Jews" with "Foreigners" and Norcon would fit right in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death_Jewish_persecutions

Just replace the word "Jews" with "Foreigners" and Norcon would fit right in

http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/themes/deceiving-the-public/
"A recurrent theme in Nazi antisemitism propaganda was that Jews spread diseases."

 

[securespark]

Is there a difference between tax fraud and tax evasion?

 

[JohnD]

Now here's a question for you Norcon. I know you're strongly pro-Jew and pro-Israel.

Would you consider it a funny joke to trick an observant Jew into eating pork?

 

[Astra99]

Is there a difference between tax fraud and tax evasion?

No. Tax EVASION is ILLEGAL. Tax AVOIDANCE, which means ordering one's tax affairs to take advantage of allowances and permissible deductions is perfectly legal.

Many of us claim tax relief on our subscriptions to professional bodies, the costs of maintaining our works vehicle and so on. If we have an office in our home, we can also claim a proportion of the utilities bills!

This is avoidance - we have paid out for services connected with our business, and thus may deduct tax on (at least part) of the amount paid.

 

[big-all]

"not much dangerous disease, good hospitals "

Hospitals are over run by foreigners who bring in diseases from their own countries.

over run by who ??
only people from the eu get access to hospitals unless they pay admission appointment and operation costs

the nhs would collapse if not "over run by foreigners" to do the jobs
also the number off people " who bring in diseases from their own countries"
will be a very very small amount compared to the "foreigners"working in the hospital never mind the even smaller amount than the population as a whole

 

[Biker1959]

Is there a difference between tax fraud and tax evasion?

Yes you evade tax by joining an artificial scheme or set of transactions to avoid paying tax, fraud is illegal anyway, whether you defraud the taxman, your employer, your customers etc

 

[EFLImpudence]

Yes you evade tax by joining an artificial scheme or set of transactions to avoid paying tax

You can't have it both ways.

 

[Brigadier]

On my hols a couple of years ago, I was reading the free paper they give out, when you get on the plane.

One of the stories was of expenses fraud among HMRC staff themselves (I've tried to find the article online, but can't find the recent one; the best I could do was 2008, which wasn't the one that I had been reading).

Basically, it was a report by one of the big accounting firms, into the abuse of expenses claims, where no receipt was required. This was widespread, and was not only done with the knowledge of the managers; in fact, they were as "enthusiastic" in practicing it, as their staff.

£100 for an overnight stay - no receipt (so, the common practice was to stay at a friend's or relly's).
£7 for "subsistence", when out of the office for more than 4 hrs; £12, if more than 7 hrs. Again, unreceipted.
Share a car to carry out a visit, but submit separate mileage claims (yes, including the one left on the HMRC office car park!)
It went on.

Back from holidays, I was talking to a friend who works for HMRC, and told him about the article I read.
His answer was that (paying unreceipted claims) was about efficiency, as "it costs admin. money to verify small claims like these".

I'd be interested to know if unverified expense claims can still be made by Civil Service departments.

 

[JohnD]

Would you be equally interested to know if unverified expense claims can still be made by commercial companies, and by MPs?

 

[Brigadier]

Would you be equally interested to know if unverified expense claims can still be made by commercial companies, and by MPs?

I am certain that goes on - what is interesting though is that HMRC will not permit it from commercial companies. Double standards.