‘The world has changed for tax evaders,’ Dave Hartnett, Permanent Secretary for Tax at HMRC, said as HM Treasury announced yesterday’s agreement with Switzerland to address evasion by UK taxpayers.
An ‘historic’ agreement with Switzerland will resolve abuse of Swiss banking secrecy by UK taxpayers and is expected to secure billions of pounds of unpaid tax from 2013, HM Treasury announced last night.
New schemes that purport to avoid tax and NICs and ‘get around’ the new disguised remuneration rules will be challenged, HMRC said in a new ‘Spotlights’ item.
More than 200 pages of draft guidance on the ‘disguised remuneration’ rules in FA 2011 were published last week. HMRC said the draft was not being published as part of a formal consultation process, but any urgent comments may be emailed to HMRC by 2 September.
HMRC’s latest Agent Update highlights a key change to penalties for late filing of self assessment tax returns.
Draft guidance for HMRC staff on the department’s updated Litigation and Settlement Strategy (LSS) runs to 45 pages.
The ‘refreshed’ LSS published last month sets out the principles governing HMRC’s handling of disputes in relation to taxes, duties and tax credits.
‘These arrests are just the start,’ said a senior HMRC official as the department announced the arrest of five plumbers in London, Hampshire, Surrey, Middlesex and the West Midlands.
Leading tax bodies have called on HMRC to take deliberate steps to win the trust of tax agents, many of whom ‘cannot understand’ why HMRC are considering investing in a system to monitor agents when the department needs to focus on improving its services.