Inland Rev & B.F. in partnership?

[Gastines]

Having just done another trip on B.F. and being handed another glossy to read ,I 'm wondering if the U.K. Inland Revenue & Customs are contributing towards the printing or perhaps it's just the accoumtancy firms? Virtually every mag. tells you that the I.N. are looking at Ads on web sites for Gite rentals etc and ensuring that the income is declared. Vitually the same scare article each edition but one item did jump out. Aparently the UK banks now advise the I.N. of anyone having an overseas bank account. Obviously Data Protection doesn't include banks but as my bank never has time to answer the phone [ You can contact your branch direct.. Just try it ] I'm amazed they have the time to deal with her majesty's tax collectors.

Regards.

[Gluestick]

Unfortunately, people who evade UK tax are criminally in breach of the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Thos who assist them to avoid correctly accounting for monies which ought to be declared are criminially in breach of the Money Laundering Regs. The two bits of legislation are mutually supportive and interlocked.

Banks often report what may well be totally innocent transactions to cover their own position!

Failure to report a suspicion, is an offence and the bank, accountant, insurer, investment adviser etc can be heavily sanctioned; which can include imprisonment.

Of course, the original intetion of these two acts was to address the problem of serious heavy criminals and big drugs distributors and importers retaining their millions.

Unfortunately, all UK government agencies have widened the net: as local councils have abused the ASBO system to attack harmless members of society, rather than control sociopathic oiks.

HM IRAC recently finished a period of amnesty where those who had failed to declare income from (e.g.) gites could rectify their ommissions with no penalty. That has now finished and they are loading their guns!

That said, since the original IR took on a raft of extra duties such as collecting NIC for the Contributions agency and then merged with Customs and Excise and now they have been compelled to take on a new and demanding role in compliance issues for certain professionals.

Additionally, the Revenue have had to cope with the change to Self Assessment for self employed; Pay and File corporation tax and then the change to Self Assessment; three quantum changes to contstruction industry taxation; and a totally useless IT roll out by Arthur Anderson/Accenture and EDS, which still doesn't work properly!

Thus I wouldn't lose too much sleep! [;-)]

 

[Gastines]

Gluestick. Your knowledge is MUCH greater than mine and whilst agreeing that they seem incapable of dealing with the more important  and greater offenders, they often seem to take the easy option. I have had a letter from them regarding a former property in France asking all the relevant details. Where did the purchase cash come from? How was I paying utility bills? Send copies of your French bank statements? Was I receiving rent etc.. and I am not joking. The only fortunate thing that I had done everything via the UK bank and above board but a bit of a worry at the time.

I well remember the case of a car dealership, from memory the chap was Danish, who fiddled many tens of millions in some VAT scam and after a few years did a deal for about a tenth of the sum owing. I wonder how us mere workers would fare if we offered ten per cent?

One rule for all,I don't think so.

Regards.

[Llwyncelyn]

From memory I think the dealership was Nissan at the time and the guys first name Otto something or other and he lived in Sussex I seem to remember.

 

I know a QC and who is a leading counsel to HMRC and he does not go into court much he just spends his days advising them as to the legalities of various schemes and to which the great legal and illegal brains in the UK and other places are going to avoid tax.

 

rdgs

[Gluestick]

He was Eastern European and his name was Bottnar. He managed to persuade Nissan to give him the whole UK franchise for Datsun (as they were called then) cars and parts.

His problem was not a scam per se, it was a question of where the business and himself should be taxed.

No different for example to Mr Philip green the owner of the Arcadia Group he and his wife are resident and domiciled in Monte Carlo.

Mr Green in common with many, pay little or no UK tax, but benefit from the UK economy!

London is full of 'em!

Before a general election, the PM hosts a dinner at number 10, which is attented by a host of scrounging billionaires who live in the UK (mainly London), much of the time and pay no taxes!

The begging bowl goes round and they deposit cheques for millions, the causas belli   being that government will not change the vague tax law defintions which allow this to continue.

And meantime we get screwed!

 

[cooperlola]

[quote user="Gluestick"]

And meantime we get screwed!

[/quote]Coo, now there's a shock...

[Will]

You are right, it was Octav Botnar. And he was indeed, in effect, the Datsun (as Nissan was known here then) importer for the whole country. I worked next door to Datsun UK in Durrington, near Worthing (also known for a big Inland Revenue office - what a coincidence) and very well recall the day the place was raided, just about every filing cabinet and every computer (not that there were too many of them back then) was taken away. The name lives on, in the Camellia Botnar Foundation, named after his daughter, I think, a gardening and youth related charity, which has an excellent nursery etc near to us in Sussex. The CBF is a big donor to Geat Ormond Street. In fact Botnar, despite his dodgy tax situation, was quite a major philanthropist, donating over £100 million. He was Romanian. I knew his former secretary rather well in the Worthing days.

We had a number of dodgy businesses in the area, there was another called Southern Organs - anybody remember them?

Sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists. Any non-national's financial transactions are liable to be looked at, and banks are required to pass details to the taxation authorities, under European money laundering rules. Nothing to do with Brittany Ferries.

[Gluestick]

One reason the name is remmbered by myself Will, is that much of my early life was spent in the automotive biz.

And then in the late 70s, when I was a director of a trading house, in the City, I was approached by one of my contacts to meet with and assist Bill Riley, the Grandson of the car company.

Bill, an absolutely charming chap, was a consulting engineer and race engineer, who apart from other things restored pedigree cars (like early Rolls) in his works in (From memory) Tewksbury, in Gloucestershire.

Bill had been asked (1978/9) to fly to Hong Kong and then met a firm called Oriental Motors: who were the agents for for the PDR of China Government!

He was flown to Bejing, and asked to sort out their production line and vehicles, most being made originally under license from Russian manufacturers until the spat!

One was the Pekin Jeep: an 'uge monster. Bill reckoned that on a main road like the M1, it wandered over three lanes: the steering was so bad; this from new!

Anyway, thinking of Botnar and Japan, I realised then how important China would become, and begged the group Chairman to take on he offered World franchise (except Hong Kong) for Chinese vehicles.

He passed.............[:'(][:@][:@]

We did import one, for a client who showed it at the Salonica Trade Fair in Greece. I had it delivered, pro tem to our offices in Kingsway WC2. Fair stopped the traffic!

 

[Thibault]

[quote user="Will"] 

 I worked next door to Datsun UK in Durrington, near Worthing    

       [/quote]

At Tesco's Will?

 

[Will]

No, it was a company called Eurotherm. Way back in the 1970s. Before Tesco.