Home transactions settle back to pre-Covid levels with ‘best sellers’ market in decades’ February 22, 2022 More than 85,000 homes changed hands in January, with property transactions up on pre-Covid averages, HMRC data has revealed. Official figures show that the provisional non-seasonally adjusted estimate of UK residential transactions for January 2022 was 85,520. This was 22.2 per cent lower than December 2021. There were seven per cent more transactions than the [...]
UK paid more tax on alcohol and cigarettes than stamp duty during the pandemic February 22, 2022 New analysis has revealed how the pandemic influenced tax growth across the UK, as HMRC received more from Alcohol and Tobacco duties during the 2020/21 tax year than they did for stamp duty. RIFT Tax Refunds’ data on the total receipts received by HMRC during the first full pandemic tax year of 2020 to 2021 [...]
Serious Fraud Office property raids fall to zero February 21, 2022 The Serious Fraud Office did not undertake a single property raid last year, according to its response to an FOI request.
HMRC rakes in £50bn thanks to new business taxes February 21, 2022 New research released today has revealed that HMRC has collected more than £50bn from firms in the last decade thanks to eight new business taxes. According to data from Thomson Reuters, in the past year alone, eight new taxes raised a total of £7.2bn from businesses, including £300m from its newest tax, the Soft Drinks [...]
Presenter Adrian Chiles wins tax appeal after seven years February 16, 2022 After more than seven years and two tribunal hearings, the broadcaster and writer Adrian Chiles has finally won his IR35 case relating to services provided to the BBC and ITV between the five tax years spanning 2012 to 2017. The tribunal’s partial analysis found that all the contracts created the initial impression of contracts of [...]
HMRC splashes £12m on data analysts February 16, 2022 HMRC has almost tripled its yearly spend on data analyst and data scientist roles over the past five years, according to official figures. The data, retrieved via the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) and analysed by the Parliament Street think tank, revealed a large uptake in data analyst and data science staff year on year [...]
Taxman opens 20 investigations into crypto assets February 15, 2022 The UK's tax authority has opened 20 criminal investigations involving digital assets as it seeks to crack down on crypto fraud.
Letters: Will someone let the dogs out to get the Covid fraudsters? February 15, 2022 [Re: HMRC inertia to claw back stolen furlough money to leave taxpayers with £4bn bill, Feb11] The report that taxpayers will be forced to shoulder a £4bn burden as a result of HMRC failing to collect the money is frankly preposterous. Every time this is brought up Rishi Sunak claims it was as a result [...]
Workers in these sectors could be owed thousands from HMRC as cost of living set to spiral February 15, 2022 With the cost of living set to spiral, research by tax refund experts, accountants have told City A.M. this morning many UK workers are unaware of the thousands of pounds they could be owed via a tax refund, particularly those working within construction, security, in offshore oil and gas or within the armed forces. It’s shaping [...]
Government rejects less than one per cent of nearly 3m expenses February 14, 2022 The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has rejected just one claim out of more than 18,000 in the year to March 2021, which has raised eyebrows over at spend management firm Emburse. Across all government departments, rejected expense claims make up just 0.07 per cent of the total 2.95m submitted between 2019 [...]