What’s HMRC doing about tax avoidance?
If you are a private citizen and you cheat on your benefit claim or tax return, you are liable to serious consequences – which is as it should be. But, if you a corporation pushing tax avoidance schemes as far as you can, you are likely to get away with it totally.
As explained in this news item, the Chair of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee Margaret Hodge has highlighted the appalling record of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs in catching corporate tax cheats. HMRC has fined just 11 people for promoting tax avoidance since 2004 – despite 10,000 people a year coming forward to report tax avoidance schemes. The 11 tax avoidance promoters taken to tribunal were fined just £5,000 each despite the maximum penalty being £1M.
As Larry Elliott explains in this comment:
” .. life is made easy for the avoidance industry because the complexity of the tax system provides too many loopholes and the existence of offshore tax havens provides too many boltholes. Without tax simplification and a crackdown on tax havens, the avoidance industry – big, powerful and well dug in – will continue to thrive.”