Tax abuse crackdown – doctors and dentists are targeted
There is so much information in the media regarding tax abuse and the many initiatives the government is applying to crack down, it cannot be ignored.£1billion above target for collection of unpaid tax
HMRC have announced that almost £24 billion was collected through tax investigations in the past year, which is £3.2 billion more than the previous year and £9 billion on the year before that. It is also a massive £1 billion above target! The main sources of this were:- Large businesses – £8 billion
- Criminal activity – £1 billion
- Tackling avoidance schemes – £2.7 billion
Tax investigations have doubled
Indeed, scary facts but HMRC have investigated double the amount from the previous year, from 119,000 in 2011-12 to over 237,000 in 2012-13. This does raise eyebrows that innocent people are perhaps being targeted and penalised for innocent mistakes and it seems that specifically the self-employed are on the radar, with figures for investigations quadrupling and prosecutions increasing seven fold in the last three years. Alarmingly for the clients of Figurit, doctors and dentists appear to be on the list of “easy targets”.List of tax defaulters
The sixth list of tax defaulters has been published where deliberate tax abuse has been proved. It currently shows 15 names and lists the penalties, of which one specific defaulter shows at £2.7 million in penalties alone.
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