2 Billion Extra Anti Avoidance Tax Raised

2 Billion Extra Anti Avoidance Tax Raised.

In 2014 new laws came into force where there are tax disputes between a taxpayer or business and HMRC.

The new rules allowed HMRC to enforce that tax must be paid upfront where there are disputed tax calculations or law involving “tax avoidance schemes”. These new rules where you must pay upfront whilst tax affairs are investigated are called Accelerated Payments Notices.

HMRC has this week released figures showing that over £2 billion has been raised from tax “dodgers”. The Treasury suggest that HMRC usually wins disputed cases anyway and by introducing Accelerated Payments Notices it means that taxes being collected on time (because it now must be paid upfront) rather than fighting long legal battles to eventually collect the tax.

Comment

We do not believe that anyone involved in the finance industry should be a “clever Dick”. Tax law is tax law and as financial experts we are required by law to point out to HMRC if we find a loophole. We are then required to explain how the loophole works so that HMRC can close the loophole.

If tax experts and their clients are trying to avoid tax by using loopholes then the so-called “tax experts” are leaving themselves open to being fined as much as their clients and indeed from a client’s perspective they too will be fine and still have to pay the tax. So why try to be clever?

No doubt, wealthy individuals or indeed personalities who may have been involved in such schemes will no doubt now blame their tax advisors for any penalties or fines that they incur. So it was clever tax agents and lawyers that made money setting up these tax avoidance schemes and it will be now another set of clever tax agents and lawyers that will make money suing those that set up these schemes.