Over 50,000 voluntary disclosures by professionals were received by the HMRC as a result of the taxman’s amnesty - the Offshore Disclosure Facility (ODF) and New Disclosure Opportunity (NDO) - gaining the taxman nearly £500m back in unpaid taxes. The Tax Health Plan (THP) also saw the taxman gain a further £10m back following 1,500 disclosures from medical professionals.
The ODF also raised £91m and the NDO £6m through subsequent investigations. On top of the 16 criminal investigations, which have arisen following the crackdown on tax evasion, the HMRC are also looking into 3,000 further leads.
Gary Ashford, head of tax investigations at RSM Tenon, said: "HMRC is sticking to its word to try and deliver a five-fold increase in prosecutions by opening these criminal investigations, and this is a clear indication that they are stepping-up their fight against tax evasion and non compliance."
The next step for the HMRC is a crackdown on people holding overseas bank accounts and an online register of tax evaders will see evaders being named and shamed online.
An HMRC spokesman said: "HMRC has now successfully launched two major campaigns to address significant risk areas for HMRC such as offshore tax evasion. Campaigns are focused on changing customer behaviour and bringing more people into compliance in a simple, straightforward way and keeping them there.
"Several thousand more offshore-related enquiries related to the NDO and the information collected from banks by HMRC on offshore customers have already started.”
For more information, please visit www.harris-lipman.co.uk
[ add comment ] ( 1 view ) | permalink |
( 3 / 187 )Just hours after Vince Cable’s warning to banks about missing lending targets to SMEs, the UK’s most senior bankers gave their side of the story. As each banker gave evidence to the Treasury Select Committee, deep divisions emerged between the bankers over the reform of the banking industry.
Bob Diamond, the chief executive of Barclays, Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, the chairman of HSBC, Douglas Flint and António Horta-Osório, the newly appointed chief executive of Lloyds, each addressed the Treasury Select Committee.
Stephen Hester of Royal Bank of Scotland warned that the value of the taxpayer's 84% stake in the bank could be reduced due to the proposals of the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB), which aims to "ring-fence" retail operations.
Mr Hester said: "I think if we went down that route there will be greater costs, and those costs would be divided between shareholders, customers and the economy as a whole”.
He also spoke of the "moral hazard" of ring-fencing high street operations away from a financial institution's riskier investment banking operations, which he said could "create a protected beast that the government will support”.
Douglas Flint, chairman of HSBC, took a more positive approach by presenting proposals of how ring-fencing could be achieved to the Treasury.
However, chief executive of Barclays, Bob Diamond, warned that plans to ring-fence retail banking could make an implicit state guarantee for banks "explicit".
António Horta-Osório, the new boss of Lloyds Banking Group, seemed to be in favour of ring-fencing, saying that the advantages "reduced the complexity" of banks.
The idea for ring-fencing was initially made in the ICB's interim report published in April. The report suggested the UK retail banking businesses of large banks should be put into separate units, making them isolated from the rest of a bank incase of an event where the lender got into trouble.
Following his warning to banks over the level of lending, Mr Cable has since been accused by the Unite union of issuing "empty threats" to put a tougher stance on tax on banks if they did not meet their target to lend £190bn to SMEs.
For more information, please visit www.harris-lipman.co.uk
[ add comment ] ( 1 view ) | permalink |
( 3 / 188 )The UK’s four biggest banks received a strong warning today from Business Secretary Vince Cable, who said that the Government is willing to take “further action with tax on banks” if they do not improve their rate of lending to SMEs.
Under the Project Merlin agreement, the banks agreed to lend £76 billion to SMEs in 2011.
But it would seem that they are not living up to the agreement, which had initially given hope to struggling SMEs across the UK.
In an attack on the level of lending being offered to small businesses, Mr Cable told MPs on the Business Committee that the rate of lending was a “serious problem”.
Vince Cable said the Government were looking for better results: “The Chancellor and Prime Minister have made it clear that if we don't get results, they have said we should take further action with tax on banks.”
In response to the warning from Mr Cable, the UK’s four biggest banks will later give their side of the story to the Treasury Committee.
Stuart Gulliver of HSBC, Stephen Hester of Royal Bank of Scotland, Bob Diamond of Barclays and Antonio Horta-Osorio of Lloyds will answer questions on the Independent Commission on Banking.
The warning follows recent news that banks had missed their Project Merlin lending target for the first quarter of the year. They agreed to lend £19 billion to SMEs during each quarter of the year but the banks lent only £16.8 billion.
Mr Cable said there was a mixture of factors involved as to why banks were not meeting their targets. The level of demand from SMEs is one factor, with the banks saying it is weak. However, businesses say they are being discouraged from applying in the first place.
He also said that banks were being more cautious in their lending because of the Government's requirement that banks hold more capital.
Mr Cable said that banks have moved away from "relationship banking" as they “don’t have the infrastructure in place to assess the risk of lending to small business”.
Demand for funding would increase if SMEs felt more encouraged to apply for funding. The Project Merlin deal put hope in many SMEs across the UK but this was soured with news that banks failed to meet their lending targets. Now the Government have recognised it is a “serious problem”, banks will hopefully work harder meaning more funding will become available.
For more information, please visit www.harris-lipman.co.uk
[ add comment ] ( 3 views ) | permalink |
( 3 / 180 )The process of declaring bankruptcy is stressful enough but the procedure is set to put people under even more pressure, with news that the cost of going bankrupt has escalated considerably.
Debt experts are warning that the rising cost for petitioning bankruptcy may discourage people from seeking a solution, with costs rising steeply from £75 to £525 at the start of the month. And with the court fee added on, the total cost could be as much as £700.
Overall, the fees of petitioning bankruptcy have risen by 37% since March last year.
Bankruptcy is the traditional way of freeing yourself from the burden of debt and making a fresh start. It ends after one year, and the bankrupt will usually lose all of their assets, including their house, to pay something back to the creditors.
So why has the cost risen so abruptly? The Insolvency Service said the rise was due to covering the administration costs. The £525 is a deposit to cover the costs of managing a bankruptcy and the Insolvency Service then recovers a full administration fee of £1,715 from the bankrupt’s assets or income at a later stage.
The deputy head of the Insolvency Service, Graham Horne, said the sum was not being increased: "The fee is staying the same but we are increasing the proportion of that fee which we get on day one.”
The Insolvency Service’s income is said to have reduced because of the falling value of homes and other assets which are recovered from bankrupts.
Jon Elwes, from the Money Advice Trust, said: "This increase in the cost of going bankrupt is likely to swell the numbers of people falling through the net of the current insolvency regime.
"Our advisers at National Debtline speak to people everyday for whom bankruptcy would be the best solution to their debt problem, but for the fact they cannot afford the associated fees."
For more information, please visit www.harris-lipman.co.uk
[ add comment ] ( 4 views ) | permalink |
( 3 / 154 )Business Secretary Vince Cable received boos and heckles at the GMB union’s conference today, after warning that co-ordinated public sector strikes would lead to a tougher stance on union laws.
Mr Cable’s warning came after unions warned of the possibility of major strikes on June 30th. The Business Secretary said that if the number of strikes remained low he would not have a compelling case for issuing tighter union laws.
During his speech, Mr Cable was jeered and heckled at as he spoke of how pressure would be on him to act if widespread disruption was caused by a higher level of public sector strikes.
The only positive cheers the Business Secretary received were when he spoke of the prospect of a day of industrial action across significant parts of the public sector.
Addressing delegates in Brighton, Mr Cable said: “We are undoubtedly entering a difficult period. Cool heads will be required all round. Despite occasional blips, I know that strike levels remain historically low, especially in the private sector.
“On that basis, and assuming this pattern continues, the case for changing strike law is not compelling.
He added: “However, should the position change, and should strikes impose serious damage to our economic and social fabric, the pressure on us to act would ratchet up. That is something which both you, and certainly I, would want to avoid.”
Mr Cable’s views are supported by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who wants laws to prevent a strike taking place unless at least half of the union members in a workplace take part in a ballot.
Paul Kenny, the GMB General Secretary, said: "I don't think that any strike in this country could inflict the sort of economic damage on our country that the banks and finance houses and frankly current Government policy have done.”
For more information, please visit www.harris-lipman.co.uk
[ add comment ] ( 3 views ) | permalink |
( 3 / 175 )
Calendar
