Middle-classes to face tax crackdown

Item 1: Vodafone. Item two: that retail chap whose wife lives in Monaco or somewhere and gets all the profits delivered to her on a silver salver as 'dividend income'

This PR statement by HMRC confirming they are to crack down on those not 'paying their share' seems to be targeting both tax evaders (illegal) and tax avoiders (legal). Personally, I think it is a waste of tax-payers money chasing legitimate tax avoiders. HMRC will not win these cases and the only beneficiaries will be the tax lawyers.

Surely it will be better for UK Plc if HMRC spends that resource on working with the legislative authorities to write better tax law............... it is a simple (but often denied fact) that, if we make tax simpler and make rates lower then more people will pay more (net receipts increase). This will also have the bonus effect that owners, rather than use their own "intellect" to avoid paying tax, will then be able to divert that intellect/resource to better use - like growing their business (which, in turn, will increase HMRC receipts).

If you try to tax everyone at 54%+ (which is the current average rate of overall tax payments here in the UK currently, once all taxes are taken into account), then, yes, those with intellect will busy themselves trying to reduce that.

The sad fact is that people are tiring of the excuses from government; who say that everyone must 'pay their share'. What about the line that we are all paying far to much and, more importantly, what we do pay gets wasted (£9bn NHS computer integration disaster - £500 completely wasted for each and every single UK tax payer. Not a single benefit to show for it).

I am not surprised that thousands seek to avoid tax. I am only surprised that the numbers are not higher.

Pity they didn't harry the expense fiddlers (paying no tax) into the dock and hefty fines for not paying tax on their ill gotten gains whilst we had to pay tax for them to fiddle.

"the late Lester Piggott"? Michelle, unless I've missed something your man at Thomas Eggar is being a little premature in reporting the great jockey's demise.

While on the subject, it would have been almost impossible for even the most uninterested or cash-strapped tax authority to lose the case against Lester. My understanding is that both parties had agreed a deal, but the "Long Fellow" made the fatal mistake of paying them with a cheque from an account he hadn't told them about during the negotiations. Sort of fell at the last hurdle, really.

Totally agree with morpheus. This is fueled by ridiculous high taxes with the money wasted on over generous social security and an inefficient public sector. Only an idiot would not try to avoid paying tax in the UK. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with tax avoidance - if income tax was 15% then why bother but at UK rates what do they expect. Just reinforces that the country is run by idiots

Why is this government so insistent that our money actually belongs to them? I hear HMRC end of tax year ads on the radio - "don't forget to pay what you owe" - which are patronising and threatening at the same time. As above, I would mind less if the money collected wasn't hosed into one of Mr Brown's still open maws; it would seem that our coalition is unable to put the cork back into the bottle.

And I am completely and utterly p***ed off with listening to HMRC radio blurbs and reading their adverts. There can't be anyone left on the planet who doesn't know that Jan 31st is cut off date. STOP WASTING OUR MONEY

If the idiots that waste taxpayers money on a gargantuan scale on things that very few of us want our money wasted on actually spent our tax pounds wisely and carefully then perhaps, just perhaps, many of us might feel less aggrieved by the State sanctioned theft of large portions of our income. Instead these nonjob bureaucrats feel that further intimidation is justified, perhaps for the next wonderful chapter ahead for Britain, namely the mass feeding, housing and funding of another million unwanted immigrants from Eastern Europe this time! Personally I say to hell with these pratts. Best of luck to anyone trying to avoid the UK's obscenely high and wasteful taxes!!

The truths about money

1. It is an invention of governments

2. It has zero intrinsic value

3. The Govt could make ALL money worthless tomorrow

4. The people who regard money as more important than honesty and integrity are to be pitied for the dull, lifeless schmucks they are.

Rik (after a good red wine, well worth the piece of paper I swapped it for!)

Are we talking avoidance (2nd para) or evasion (3rd para)?

Evasion, in it's simplest form is not declaring income and not paying tax - clearly illegal, whereas avoidance, in it's most widely used and government sanctioned form would be putting funds in an ISA wrapper - clearly not illegal.

Where do you draw the boundaries?

It is up to HMRC to define the boundaries, which I would suggest would be far more easily defined by simplification of the tax system, rather than threatening people who are using what they believe to be legitimate and acceptable methods of tax avoidance to minimise their tax bill.

Of course we should all pay our due taxes but we also (as others have mentioned) have a right to expect that our tax pounds will not be squandered.

I for one don't want to see my taxes going to fund housing and legal aid for terrorists living in this country.

Really excellent posts above on this subject. Morpheus sets it out clearly and others add well to the notion that the government arrogantly believes it can help itself to as much of our hard-earned cash that it can get its hands on to squander at will.

Having seen billions of our taxes wasted by successive bloated waster governments over the years, I say good luck to anyone who can keep a bit back for themselves. Scroungers who are already here, or are are making their way here, have no qualms whatsoever in taking as much as they can without putting in any effort whatsoever.

They really must sort out those issues before they start threatening people who are actually working and already making some contribution.

Ignore it, just a press release designed to make it look like they are watching over you by choosing some arbitrary category of the population to make it look direct and threatening. Next week they will be going after people called Trevor.