HMRC made some announcements recently. You may ave seen some of them get trailed in the press. Did you see the one about them paying informants?
Yes, Exchequer Secretary James Murray will be announcing a new reward scheme for informants to be launched later this year. This will look to target serious non-compliance in large corporates, wealthy individuals, offshore and avoidance schemes. The scheme will take inspiration from the successful US and Canadian ‘whistleblower’ models and will complement the existing HMRC rewards scheme.
Informants could take home a significant amount of compensation. This will be equal to a proportion of the tax take, ensuring that the scheme raises more money that it costs. Work is ongoing within the government regarding what percentage this could be.
As HMRC are recruiting thousands of additional case workers and deb collectors, couple with the power of AI possibly making their work lot easier to process, we could easily see this working it’s way down the tax ladder.
I can imagine ten ways landlords could easily end up getting their details passed to HMRC. Asking for cash discounts from the wrong supplier and insisting a tenant pays cash are the two that come to mind easiest. How many ways can you think of?
Would you inform HMRC where you know someone is getting an unfair advantage tax wise? If so some suggestions are that you could be in for up to 25% of the tax take!