3 Brits banged up for £300k VAT scam Three men have been jailed for setting up nine totally fictional firms so that they could get away with £300,000 in a VAT scam. The men set up bogus companies including a clothes manufacturer, a publishing house and a software engineering company and then submitted VAT repayment claims for the businesses, the HMRC said today. …
The Right Honorable Jacqui Smith - Britains first female Home Secretary - fiddled £100k and merely had to issue a pretend apology to her fellow MP's during the great corruption exposure a couple of years back. After agreeing to such a demanding act of contrition, they allowed her to keep the loot. She did lose her job though, more likely because of the embarrassment the porn she charged to the taxpayer caused than the real crime. Anyway, just shows the British justice system for what it is when you hear of others caught doing the same thing (3 people, £300k) - porridge for you lads, with no early kid gloves release of the kind Chris Huhne is about to get.
"We are working relentlessly to combat those involved in tax evasion and fraud and bring them before the courts. With over £10 billion being stolen from UK finances each year by criminals, it is serious crime which we are determined to eradicate."
Is that £10 billion calculated the same way that the movie and recording industries calculate their losses due to piracy?
Or to put it another way, if they know they're losing £10 billion a year due to tax fraud, why haven't they stopped it?
Eh? They paid their legal tax entitlement.
I have not met anyone who has voluntarily paid any more tax than they are legally obliged to. Have you?
It's disgusting how politicians could dare to call that morally repugnant. Firstly politicians are not employed to judge the morals of the citizens that they serve. The mere fact that any of them think that they are just shows how out of touch they are. Secondly, I would like to see them tackle the problem instead of blaming and guilt-tripping others. Thirdly, how can any politician claim moral superiority over any other human being?
"Politicians are not born, they are excreted."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
But Vodafone, Starbuck's etc do pay VAT!
It is just that because of the way VAT is accounted for, it does not appear in the company accounts, which are used for determining company tax liabilities - which is what most of the fuss has been about (although there is an element of VAT evasion in the charges made against companies dealing in digital content and services).
18 months, clear message indeed. They should have thought big, gone for £30 mln profit, would have got maybe 5 years, and when out, they could live happily ever after, abroad, from the money carefully stashed away there. Alternatively.... banking! They should have become bankers, one of those innocent types who lost, oh, I don't know, 30 billion, and then get 3 years of paid-for vacation, and publishing rights when they're out.
that said, they might still employed as consultants by one of those small businesses involved in double Irish-Dutch sandwich making...
I'm not sure which makes me more annoyed: the £120bn avoided/evaded/uncollected estimate by the Tax Justice Network (which is probably on the conservative side of reality), or that the circles are scaled by radius rather than area (to deliberately and needlessly skew the perceptual effect).
[It's probably the former, but still...]
Gee, for a minute I thought they had caught up with ticket-cheat Osborne for not paying for his rail rides.
Some countries make everyone, including companies, pay VAT first, then they can seek a refund after they can prove goods were sold on. Seems to work well. The governments always get the cash first then payout after satisfying themselves all was well.
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