Cable Forum - View Single Post - The state benefits system mega-thread.

**Hugh** · 30-03-2015, 16:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianch99

I wish a fraction of the energy, effort and media coverage that goes into finding who of the current benefit claiments does not deserve their money, would go into identifying the tax dodgers and plugging the myriad schemes through which they operate.

I suspect that the sums that are "owed" in tax far out weigh the money that is being incorrectly paid out in benefits.

Do you mean like this?

Quote:

What the government has done

2.1

This government has taken effective action against those who break the rules. It is determined to chase down the tax that is owed and make sure that those who avoid or evade change their behaviour.

2.2

The government has invested in HMRC - more than £1 billion in HMRC’s compliance activities since 2010 to tackle non-compliance including evasion and avoidance.

2.3

The amount brought in is increasing every year – from £17 billion in 2010 to an expected £26 billion in 2014-15. During this Parliament, HMRC will have secured £100 billion in additional compliance revenue as a result of actions taken to tackle evasion, avoidance and noncompliance.

2.4

This includes more than £31 billion as a result of interventions with big businesses since 2010. And the High Net Worth Unit has collected £1.2 billion in extra compliance yield from the UK’s 6,000 richest people, who each have a net worth of £20 million or more.

And for other wealthy individuals, the Affluent Unit formed in 2011 and later expanded has collected around £250 million in additional compliance revenues to 2013-14.

2.5

Criminal investigations have protected £4.1 billion since 2011 with a fivefold increase in criminal prosecutions for mass market or “volume crime” (investigations across trade sectors intended to produce deterrent prosecutions). Since 2010 HMRC has secured more than 2,650 criminal prosecutions and 2,718 years of prison sentences for tax offences.

2.6

To make it easier to find offshore evasion in the future, the government has led the agreement of an unprecedented step change in international tax transparency. Over 90 countries are committed to share information on bank and other financial accounts, starting in 2017. Over £2 billion has been collected from offshore evasion, mainly through the UK Swiss Agreement - where UK residents either paid a withholding tax on funds held in Switzerland or disclosed to HMRC - and from the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility (LDF), through which people can make disclosures to HMRC about offshore accounts and clear up their past wrongdoings.

2.7

The government has taken ground-breaking action against avoidance – ensuring HMRC has the powers they need and changing the economics of avoidance with measures such as Accelerated Payments, which gives HMRC the power to collect disputed tax bills up front, and introduced the UK's first General Anti-Abuse rule, which tackles the worst tax avoidance arrangements. The measures this government has taken to tackle avoidance are forecast to raise more than £12 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament.

And this?

Quote:

'If people help a burglar, they are accomplices too. Now it will be the same for those that help tax evaders’, explains the Chief Secretary.

Tax evaders and the professionals who enable tax evasion will face tough new sanctions, including two new criminal offences and higher penalties, under a new regime to crack down on offshore evaders the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander announced today (Thursday 19 March).
Building on yesterday’s Budget announcement that the government is introducing a new and tough last chance disclosure facility ahead of the worldwide automatic exchange of financial information coming into effect which the UK championed, the Chief Secretary is today unveiling plans to:

introduce a new strict liability criminal offence for offshore evasion – so in the worst cases it’s no longer possible to plead ignorance in an attempt to avoid criminal prosecution
make it a criminal offence for corporates to fail to prevent tax evasion or the facilitation of tax evasion on their watch
increase the financial penalties faced by evaders – including, for the first time, linking the penalty to value of the asset kept in an offshore bank account
introduce new civil penalties on those who enable evasion so they will face the same penalty as the tax evader
publicly name and shame both evaders and those who enable evasion.....

....Over the course of this Parliament, as a result of actions taken to tackle evasion, avoidance and non-compliance, HMRC will have secured £100 billion in additional revenue. This includes more than £31 billion from big businesses, and an extra £1.2 billion from the UK’s 6,000 richest people, who each have a net worth of £20 million or more.

And since, in 2013/14, estimates were £3.4bn of benefit was overpaid due to claimant error, fraud or official error, and around £23 billion that year was collected from those who were evading/avoiding tax, the figures speak for themselves....