Tax Dodgers to be Named and Shamed
From the 1st April onwards, anyone who dodges more than £25,000 worth of their tax liability will be named and shamed by Her Majesties Revenue and Customs in an attempt to cut down the number of tax dodgers in the UK.
The plan to introduce this has been known about since last year’s budget, however the date has only recently been set for when it would be implemented.
The idea has come from a similar format used in Ireland, where the identities of tax cheats have been published for some time, and these names attract widespread publicity in Ireland. Hopes are that the UK can achieve similar results.
HMRC have also said that the new ruling will only act on tax fraud from the implementation date, meaning everyone previous will not have their name published. This also means that it is likely to be at least the early months of 2011 before anyone has amassed a high enough figure to go over the threshold and have their details published.
"This new approach should make people think again about trying to get away with tax fraud," said Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
"As well as having to pay the tax, interest on the tax, plus penalties of up to 100% of the tax lost, they also now risk being identified publicly," he added.
A spokesman for HMRC has said that anyone who does fulfil the criteria to be named, will have the chance to plead any mitigating circumstances to avoid the bad publicity should they win the case.
But he warned that, "if taxpayers have been cheating and they do not tell us, no amount of good representation will help them avoid being named."
Stephen Camm, tax partner at PwC, said: "Being named publicly in this way could be likened to 'ASBOs for tax evaders', causing a lot of damage to the individual's personal and commercial reputation."
Posted at 09:26AM Mar 07, 2010 by Marc Stenton in The Economy | Comments[0]
