2015: HMRC – one in three calls unanswered, HSBC scandal, Crickhowell traders make offshore arrangements

Crickhowell

In February 2015 leaked bank account details showed how the HSBC’s Swiss unit helped wealthy customers and arms dealers to dodge taxes by concealing assets and handing out bundles of cash to avoid the authorities.

It was reported that the Treasury came under pressure to explain why HMRC did not pursue those suspected of criminal evasion more vigorously. HMRC and Treasury ministers claimed that France put restrictions on the use of the leaked HSBC Switzerland files, which had only just been eased. However, this account was undermined by Michel Sapin, the French finance minister.

Parliament’s own website headed the summary of the Committee of Public Accounts report on Revenue and Customs: “HMRC still failing UK taxpayers” in June 2015.

As many as one in three phone calls to HM Revenue & Customs went unanswered in recent months, prompting an admission that “standards had not been good enough”. Paul Aplin, a partner at accountants A C Mole & Sons, said the number of calls not answered had reached “completely unacceptable levels”. He spent 40 minutes waiting for the phone to be answered this week. Mr Aplin also had anecdotal evidence of a deterioration in post handling, saying he had recently been told a query would take 10 weeks to answer.

In November HMRC’s annual performance report was published. The summary by the chair, MP Meg Hillier, may be read here

The FT (November 2015) reported that traders in Crickhowell on the edge of the Welsh Black Mountains “went offshore”

https://inews.co.uk/news/business/town-took-taxman-gave-battle-whos-going-take-mantle-93648

The town’s traders submitted tax plans to HMRC, using the offshore arrangements favoured by multinationals. They hoped that their ‘tax rebellion’ would spread to other towns forcing the Government to tackle how Amazon, for example, paid £11.9million tax in 2014 on £5.3billion of UK sales (scroll down here).

Their rationale: high street coffee shop owner Steve said: ‘I have always paid every penny of tax I owe, and I don’t object to that. What I object to is paying my full tax when my big name competitors are doing the damnedest to dodge theirs.’

Their journey to take the town to an offshore tax haven was filmed by the BBC and shown in Jan 2016. The local traders were embarking on a mission to copy the techniques used by their multinational rivals. The film followed the owner of the local coffee shop, clothing stores, smokery, optician and bookshop on their offshore mission. Their journey took them to secretive tax havens, smart tax lawyers and even forced a showdown with the taxman himself’

Unsurprisingly it can no longer be downloaded

 

 

 

o