Ebay and Paypal users face 'huge' tax crackdown

[Neil McCauley]

"HMRC will be given new powers to obtain details of millions of online transactions from companies including Paypal, Ebay and hotel comparison websites to target those failing to pay tax"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...crackdown.html

[Oddball]

Not a suprise is it ?? They must be losing a mint

[walpurgis]

Not sure what these "new powers" might be. They have all the legal tools they need already within the UK surely?

[Oldpinkman]

Data held by anybody on a computer (and some data not on a computer) is confidential and protected by the data protection act.

Hmrc- even with the powers they acquired from the customs and excise part of the merger, do not have an automatic right to access confidential data. They would need a court order every time if fraud were suspected. They recently acquired additional powers to access information from banks. This is a further step towards big brother intrusion. They also have powers to take money owed to them direct from your bank account now without your consent (intended only for severe evaders and defaulters, but...)

To à law abiding individual dealing honestly with their tax affairs this may all sound reasonable and a sound way to ensure all government services are paid for by proper contribution by all. But Hmrc have an eye-watering record of incompetence and errors. I could cite dozens of examples from my clients where Hmrc have intimidated and were wrong. one recent one involved a referral of an antiquarian horologist who inherited about 3/4 of a million in 2006,and had racked up penalties exceeding £5000 for failure, as executor, to file estate tax returns. He was being threatened with the usual seizure of assets (in his case potentially antique watches). His problem was he didn't understand complex trust tax administration rules, so couldn't understand the error Hmrc were making and buried his head in the sand.

I went through the Estate records and determined that the entire estate had been properly distributed by the solicitors who had sent the correct tax return notifying this to the correct tax office who had received it because they had issued an assessment which must have used the information on the return. So I sent them a copy and asked them to withdraw the notices to file the 6 tax returns which should never have been issued in the first place and cancel all penalties. It took them 5 weeks to do that. Not a word of an apology. Moreover my client had already paid £3500 of the wrongly charged penalties, and it took further calls and correspondence to get that back. They never answer the phone (except if you call the debt management unit). I have to charge the poor guy for the work, and none of that fee is recoverable by him from Hmrc whose error it was.

My former partner used to say "the old hmit (her majesties inspector of taxes) was woolly and slow, out of the ark, but a gentleman of the old school, stopping to take afternoon tea from a China cup. Customs and excise background was standing on clifftops shooting smugglers. Since the merger (takeover by customs) they bring that approach to every situation "

Rant over

[Firebottle]

Yes it does make your blood boil when a 'service' can't be administered correctly.

Presumably if you or I (Joe public) made such errors we'd get the sack

[Andrei]

Data held by anybody on a computer (and some data not on a computer) is confidential and protected by the data protection act.

Hmrc- even with the powers they acquired from the customs and excise part of the merger, do not have an automatic right to access confidential data. They would need a court order every time if fraud were suspected. They recently acquired additional powers to access information from banks. This is a further step towards big brother intrusion. They also have powers to take money owed to them direct from your bank account now without your consent (intended only for severe evaders and defaulters, but...)

To à law abiding individual dealing honestly with their tax affairs this may all sound reasonable and a sound way to ensure all government services are paid for by proper contribution by all. But Hmrc have an eye-watering record of incompetence and errors. I could cite dozens of examples from my clients where Hmrc have intimidated and were wrong. one recent one involved a referral of an antiquarian horologist who inherited about 3/4 of a million in 2006,and had racked up penalties exceeding £5000 for failure, as executor, to file estate tax returns. He was being threatened with the usual seizure of assets (in his case potentially antique watches). His problem was he didn't understand complex trust tax administration rules, so couldn't understand the error Hmrc were making and buried his head in the sand.

I went through the Estate records and determined that the entire estate had been properly distributed by the solicitors who had sent the correct tax return notifying this to the correct tax office who had received it because they had issued an assessment which must have used the information on the return. So I sent them a copy and asked them to withdraw the notices to file the 6 tax returns which should never have been issued in the first place and cancel all penalties. It took them 5 weeks to do that. Not a word of an apology. Moreover my client had already paid £3500 of the wrongly charged penalties, and it took further calls and correspondence to get that back. They never answer the phone (except if you call the debt management unit). I have to charge the poor guy for the work, and none of that fee is recoverable by him from Hmrc whose error it was.

My former partner used to say "the old hmit (her majesties inspector of taxes) was woolly and slow, out of the ark, but a gentleman of the old school, stopping to take afternoon tea from a China cup. Customs and excise background was standing on clifftops shooting smugglers. Since the merger (takeover by customs) they bring that approach to every situation "

Rant over

Rant over?? FFS Richard don't get me started. Here in NZ we have an Inland Revenue Department that that can sequestrate at will!! What is more the courts (ie the pathetic little individuals) not only refuse to act independently (that they are nominally paid to do) but will not - point blank - exercise independent judgment. Yeah yeah there is f..ing carnage in the justice systems of Afghanistan, N Korea etc but we* are actually worse because our hypocrisy window dresses it as civilisation.

I had a Ukrainian client, innocent, (trust me on this), for whom I had the greatest difficulty in obtaining the evidence against him. I had requested from the prosecution certain information that he was entitled to have. If we got that he could absolutely refute it and thereby not stand trial. He complained to me that back in the Ukraine (!) a single bottle of Vodka would have elicited that evidence and for all practical purposes resolved the case.

It's a jungle out there and ok I don't want to live in the Sudan but we have vicious enemies in Political Correctness, hypocrisy, bullying, self interest and so it goes.

Here in NZ we have a resident wit who has the Shakespearean ability (think Hamlet) of the 'Joker' to avoid castigation from the authorities. He said (I do my best to quote): ' somebody, somebody, has to do the Lord's work. Go there with a machine gun and mow them down". Bravo!

[Oldpinkman]

Yes it does make your blood boil when a 'service' can't be administered correctly.

Presumably if you or I (Joe public) made such errors we'd get the sack

No -HMRC would issue penalty notices, and then never answer the phone when you want to point out it has been raised on a false premis. I could write, but their recently centralised postal facility is currently 7 weeks behind opening the post - they are opening post received in the 2nd week of May. What I need is to be able to issue them with a penalty notice

[Macca]

No -HMRC would issue penalty notices, and then never answer the phone when you want to point out it has been raised on a false premis. I could write, but their recently centralised postal facility is currently 7 weeks behind opening the post - they are opening post received in the 2nd week of May. What I need is to be able to issue them with a penalty notice

I remember working at one place where it was discovered a similar process had fallen several months behind. Management solution was to take the whole department into a meeting for 4 hours to discuss it. I pointed out that if they had instead used the 4 hours to work on the backlog (mangers included) they could have pretty much cleared it. That didn't go down so well....

[Oldpinkman]

Quick update. I have just had an ICAEW tax faculty brief on this. At this stage it is proposed legislation and just been put out to consultation - responses due by the end of October.