Millions more Brits in debt as debt pile owed to HMRC balloons to £42bn November 17, 2021 Around 2.4m more taxpayers are in debt to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as tax debt is at more than double its pre-pandemic levels, according to a spending watchdog. In fact, tax debt ballooned by £26bn between January 2020 and September of this year. Staffing levels at HMRC are unlikely to be enough to manage [...]
September house prices show ‘last of stamp duty sizzle’ November 17, 2021 UK house prices leapt in the year to September in the run up to the final stamp duty holiday deadline, government figures show. HMRC’s latest house price index shows that house prices climbed 2.5 per cent in September and 11.8 per cent annually. The average price of a property in the UK was £269,945, hitting [...]
Nearly $500bn ‘lost to tax abuse’ by companies and elites in 2021 November 16, 2021 Countries have lost $483bn to tax abuse by multinationals and ultra-wealthy individuals, with the UK singled out as the world’s greatest enabler of global corporate tax abuse, according to a new report. The State of Tax Justice 2021 report found that the UK was responsible for nearly 40 per cent of the total losses this [...]
HMRC hybrid working made permanent: 40,000 staffers given new devices November 15, 2021 HMRC has invested in nearly 40,000 laptops, tablets and phones in the last 12 months, and a total of 45,704 devices since October 2019, shortly before widespread remote working was introduced. The data revealed that new devices had surged by 366 per cent this year, when compared to the same time period for last year [...]
Jacob Rees-Mogg may have broken parliamentary rules by not declaring £6m in loans November 14, 2021 Jacob Rees-Mogg may have broken parliamentary rules by not disclosing £6m in loans he took out from his Cayman Islands-linked company. The leader of the House of Commons took out £2.94m of “director’s loans” every year between 2018 and 2020 from his UK-based company Saliston Ltd, according to the Mail on Sunday. Rees-Mogg, who led [...]
Who should advise on Research and Development (R&D) tax claims? November 12, 2021 In the Budget on 27 October, the Chancellor outlined his desire for greater investment in innovation and research. To do this, further government funding will be made available by way of the existing R&D tax reliefs. As stated in the ‘red book’, ‘The UK tax system provides very generous support to encourage companies to conduct [...]
How digital currencies can generate BILLIONS in tax revenue November 11, 2021 Crypto AM columnist Jonny Fry examines how cryptocurrencies could actually put a smile on the face of the tax man.
If billionaires can decide to pay tax with a Twitter poll, something is badly wrong November 10, 2021 There’s something darkly amusing about one of the richest men in the world using Twitter to poll his 60 million followers about whether he should pay tax. It wasn’t just the flippant way Tesla’s Elon Musk (@edgeLorde) asked his followers to vote on whether he should sell $21bn of stock and in doing so pay [...]
Whistleblowing reports of minimum wage violations fall thanks to furlough scheme November 8, 2021 The number of whistleblowers reporting businesses for breaking national minimum wage laws has dropped to its lowest in four years, with the furlough scheme considered a key driver of the change. Whistleblower reports of national minimum wage (NMW) violations fell to 2,488 over the year, down from 2,580 last year, according to law firm Pinsent [...]
Criminal gangs stole £350m from Covid support schemes November 5, 2021 Fraudsters taking from Covid support schemes have cost the taxpayer almost £5bn, new analysis has revealed. Organised crime gangs took £350m from schemes including the furlough Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, and the subsidised meals initiative Eat Out to Help Out. A remaining £4.6bn was taken opportunistic fraudsters, according to figures [...]