I had to share this - apologies!

[squirrel]

As part of my current company's compliance with all things FCA, its employees have to take annual tests in various areas to prove they are up to date with current legislation. I've just done the Data Protection Awareness test and have moved on to the Financial Crime Awareness test. Imagine my delight when I came across the following text in the Money Laundering section:

"All forms of tax evasion (income tax, vat and corporation tax) and benefit fraud must be reported using the suspicious activity report process (more on this later in the training). Remember however that tax avoidance is the legal use of the tax regime to reduce the amount of tax payable by means that are within the law and therefore do not need to be reported"

Oh how I laughed!

[Old Kent Road]

Do you work for Google or Starbucks? ;-)

[yasockie]

What really bothers me is my Ltd paid more CT than Facebook. And I wasn't even invoicing the whole year.

[squirrel]

I'm sure this doc has been alluded to in the past on this forum but...

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...right_sig_.pdf

It's nice of HMG to *ahem* clarify the terminology in box 1.A on page 5.

I will forward this on to my HR department to ensure they change the annual training material given that Planning is the new Avoidance, Avoidance is the new Evasion, and Evasion is the new Treason.

I also took great pleasure in pointing out the Tax Planning definition to a Tory loving colleague of mine who delights in the fact that he has been sacrificing 60% of his salary for the past 3 years. They'll be after you for aggressive planning I say, it's the lib dems he replies, the Tories will see me right if there's an overall majority.

Oh how I laughed.

[dangerouswhensober]

Thanks for posting this Squirrel - I hadn't seen this piece of glorious HMRC propoganda before. I wonder if it was drafted by their highly-paid consultants (the same ones who advised them to send out all APNs on a Friday for receipt on Saturday, and who advised them to follow-up with phone calls - and the same ones whose firms make millions by advising large corporates on tax minimisation strategies ...)

There is an interesting "fact" on page 12, section 2.25:

"... As at 13 March 2015, HMRC has already issued 7,712 (APN) notices with a value of £1.6 billion."

As I recall, HMRC claimed last Summer when the APN legislation was included in the 2014 Finance Act that their target was to issue 40,000+ APNs to individuals and a further 10,000 to companies who they viewed as tax avoiders - and they aimed to do this by end-March 2016.

So nine months into a 21 month campaign (i.e. ~43% of time gone) they have issued 7,712 out of 50,000 notices (~15% of target notices).

If HMRC are having such delays just getting the APN demands out of the door on schedule, they will surely have all kinds of problems when the vast majority of recipients politely decline to pony up the requested sponduliks without a legal fight ...

Tentative conclusion: Continue to delay, query, question, challenge - it all eats up the (limited) available HMRC resources - and they are already straining under the pressure ...

[dangerouswhensober]

BTW ...

According to this document, the average value of APNs issued so far (up to mid-March) = £1.6 billion / 7,712 ~ £ 207,000

Just confirms that most people reading these boards (but not all) are small fry in comparison ...

[squirrel]

Section 3.33 interested me...

"3.33 The government will also consider whether further legislation is needed to stop avoiders from using tax administration processes and deadlines in an effort to frustrate or delay HMRC investigations. As part of this the government will look to identify processes or deadlines that are being used to the advantage of avoiders and consider whether to change them."

So many things scarily wrong with that paragraph, the power has absolutely gone to their heads!

Reckon we need to get the BIG GROUP up and running ASAP before we're outlawed! Modern day Robin Hoods except we, err, aren't taking anything from anyone just standing our ground. Maybe that wasn't such a good analogy lol

This is not a popularity contest, I know I've said that before, but we've got to somehow get the public to see through all the propaganda and realise that all these measures will be visiting a bank account near them very soon ...