Gaming tax for pubs

A lack of preparation for a forthcoming tax could see as many as 30,000 pubs being slapped with substantial fines, as HMRC notes that only 353 affected watering holes have signed up to the Machine Games Duty (MGD).

According to estimates from the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) the number of pubs registered for MGD is less than 2% of the 30,000 that it expects will be impacted by the duty and should be getting in touch with the taxman to avoid the potentially crippling penalties.

Fines of between 30% and 100% of unpaid tax can be handed out by HMRC, to non-compliers with the more severe fines being given where the taxman understands there to be more intent in avoiding paying the duty.

MGD is set to replace the Amusement Machine Licence Duty (AMLD) for providers of arcade and amusement machines from 1 February 2013 and registration for the new duty - in time for the implementation date - closes on 11 January next year, having been recently extended from the original 1 January date.

Most significantly, MGD will see the introduction of two alternative tax rates; 20%, where the stake is higher than 10p and has a prize exceeding £8, or 5%, where the stake is 10p or less and a prize of no more than £8.

The new rules will mean that machines known in the industry as ‘skills with prizes’ (or SWPs) will now be liable under the higher MGD rate, where as previously under AMLD they were exempt.

Speeding HMRC

The taxman has submitted a request to be on a revised list of emergency services allowed to break the legal speed limit.

HMRC says it wants the government to grant it the special powers for when it is engaged in the covert surveillance of organised crime.

The department made its approach to the Department for Transport which has issued a three month consultation on allowing speed limit exemptions to be extended to services beyond the three core emergency services of police, fire and ambulance services.

These include bomb disposal units, vehicles carrying organs for transplant, mountain rescue and coastguard vehicles.

The consultation will also look at amending road safety legislation so that emergency drivers would be required by law to complete high-speed training before exceeding the limit. But this will not place any additional burden on police, fire and ambulance services which already run an effective voluntary training scheme.

While emergency service drivers are not exempt from the offences of dangerous and careless driving, the current legislation allows drivers in some circumstances to break speed limits legally, as well as exempting them from certain traffic regulations.

Road safety minister Stephen Hammond, said:

‘Police, fire and ambulance service drivers are highly trained individuals who are at times required to exceed the speed limit in order to save lives. It is only right that we look at allowing other services whose duties can mean the difference between life and death to exceed the speed limit when responding to emergencies. ’

‘It is also time to look at the legal requirements of emergency vehicle training so we can build on the rigorous standards the police, fire and ambulance services have already applied through their code of practice.’

While emergency service drivers are not exempt from the offences of dangerous and careless driving, the current legislation allows drivers in some circumstances to break speed limits legally as well as exempting them from certain traffic regulations.

Business goals

WHY BUSINESS GOALS ARE SO IMPORTANT!

 

Business goals are usually the last thing you think about. After all, you’ve got that problem customer to sort out, the bank manager breathing down your neck and that troublesome employee who wants a pay rise! Setting goals for the business seems completely unnecessary because you’ve already got a short term goal – survive the recession – and a long term goal of making more money. Despite all of this there are five great reasons why business goals should be essential for you.

 

Goals help you focus

It is all too easy to let short term crises blow you off track. Fire fighting can mean that you don’t keep a consistent strategy. Goals keep you focused on what’s important.

 

Goals are satisfying

Goal achievement is fantastically satisfying! The physical, mental and emotional lift you get from meeting a target makes the hard work worthwhile.

 

Goals are supportive

Not everyone has a strong support network to help them cope with the often lonely place at the head of an organisation. If you’re alone or lacking support, goals are a great way of reminding you what you are trying to achieve and silently beckoning you on towards them.

 

Goals boost wellbeing

Knowing what you are striving to achieve makes you happier and more content. This in turn makes you more effective in business and life – a virtuous circle!

 

Goals are reminders

By recording business goals for everyone to see and reading them regularly makes them come alive and gather a momentum all of their own.

Accenture tax avoidance

Global consultancy firm Accenture – which also performs outsourced work from HMRC - has avoided tens of millions in corporation tax, paying only 3.5% of its profits in tax.

According to the Sunday Times, the firm’s accounts show that it paid no UK corporation tax in the previous years on profits of over £180m and paid £2.8m in corporation tax on nearly £82m in profits in the 2011 financial year. The accounts also reveal £12.7m in deferred tax – which it may still be liable for.

Headquartered in Ireland, Accenture’s 2009 accounts reveal it paid no corporation tax on £64m in profits and its 2010 accounts reveal it paid no corporation tax on £123m in profits.

The firm claims several reliefs on CT, including partly paying some of its staff in share options and ‘adjustments’ from previous years. The share options relief slashed £22m from its tax bill last year.

The firm’s accounts, which are audited by US tax authorities over cross-border deals of its various subsidiary companies which are able to shift profits into tax havens and low-tax jurisdictions, may come under questioning by the Public Accounts Committee.

PAC chair, Margaret Hodge, said:

‘It is absolutely absurd if HMRC are doing business with companies that are not paying their fair share of tax.’

Accenture declined to comment on whether it paid royalty fees to its parent company in Ireland. It also declined to answer questions related to payments made from the British firm to low-tax jurisdictions, telling the Sunday Times that its arrangements complied fully with UK regulations.

HMRC get tough

HMRC has sent out a ‘warning shot’ to users of a perfectly legal tax avoidance scheme, encouraging them to leave before it is too late.

The letters, distributed to 1,500 individuals, are seen as a pre-emptive strike by the taxman prior to a legal challenge of the unnamed scheme in court.

According to the BBC, four different versions of the letter have been sent out, with one stating: ‘You are in the small minority of people who have made the deliberate choice to avoid tax. We focus our resources on this small minority. The choice that you have made changes the way we view your tax affairs.’

It is understood to be the first time HMRC has sent out correspondence concerning a currently legal scheme, and it is hoped that a potentially lengthy and costly legal battle can be avoided by the users choosing to opt out voluntarily.

An HMRC spokesperson issued the following statement: ‘The letters are designed specifically to get those using a marketed avoidance scheme to contact us and settle up. We are acting on behalf of the vast majority of people who don't try to get around the rules. We are cracking down hard on tax dodging. ’

The "cuts" again!

Cuts? What cuts?

 

In June 2010 The Office for Budget Responsibility set out its target borrowings for the Coalition government. Under that plan, in 2012-13 borrowing was supposed to be £89 billion. Borrowing in 2011-12 was £121.4 billion and the latest figures (if they can be relied on) indicate that 2012-13 borrowings will be £130 billion.

 

Of course, the Government’s figures are not necessarily that accurate – they originally said quarter 2 GDP growth was –0.7% but in the end it was nearly 50% wrong and it turned out to be –0.4%. In August, official statisticians told us that July was a budget deficit. Now they are telling us they didn’t spend more than they received, in fact July was a surplus month with receipts bigger than spending!

 

However, assuming that borrowing this year is £130 billion then it is nowhere near the original target. So what is the problem?

 

Official figures last month clearly point to where the problem is. Despite the so-called cuts, welfare spending was 7.7% up on a year ago and nearly 15% over three years. With unemployment just under 2.5 million, it almost at the same level as three years ago, it is not the “recession” that is causing the increasing spending.

 

It is a combination of Gordon Brown’s lavish tax credit system and the fact that benefits are now index-linked.

 

Despite the howls of protests about “the cuts” the reality is that the Coalition government have failed miserably in getting the burgeoning welfare budget under control.

 

Gordon Brown fails again!

Oh dear! Things have just got worse for Gordon Brown, possibly Britain’s worst ever Chancellor. 

 

On taking office, he raided our pensions to pay for his lavish spending plans and in the process consigned millions of people to poverty when they retire. He followed that up by selling our gold reserves and buying now nearly worthless Euros instead.

 

He then invented the tax credit system that saw generous cash handouts to people earning up to £60000 (with average earnings only £22000 a year, it was doomed to need vast borrowings to fund it). Needless to say, spending on this and other generous benefits saw spending balloon forcing Gordon brown to have to borrow more money than we had in the previous 300 years put together to pay for it.

 

Not content with burdening our children’s children with the gigantic debt pile, Gordon Brown then put in place a “soft touch” regime to regulate our banks. As part of that, he and Ed Balls announced in May 2007 the creation of taxpayer funded The International Centre for Financial Management. It was supposed to promote Brown’s soft touch “principles based” approach to financial regulation. Four months later, Northern Rock collapsed, making a mockery of the principles based system of regulation.

 

Now City of London police are investigating the alleged serious embezzlement of funds at The International Centre for Financial Management! A member of its management has been suspended and the centre is, according to press reports, going to have to close if the money is missing.

 

BBC

The BBC needs to improve its financial reporting systems, according to a report by the National Audit Office (NAO).

The report for the BBC Trust found that while the broadcaster had “strengthened its approach to managing its finances” its financial reporting is “slow and resource intensive”.

It also needs to monitor “how its spending aligns with its strategic and editorial priorities” on a more frequent basis.

The report’s publication falls at a time when the BBC is embroiled in implementing brought about through the £700m Delivering Quality First scheme.

The NAO said:

‘The BBC is making more effective use of the skills and independence of its non-executive directors to help it scrutinize and challenge major financial decisions, following concerns raised previously by the Public Accounts Committee that it did not subject spending decisions to sufficient challenge.’

The report recommended that the BBC Trust and Ofcom work together to explore the scope for coordinating the information they require the BBC to report to them, as current separate reporting arrangements and timescales take up resources that could be better used elsewhere.

It said the BBC had begun to benchmark its costs both internally and with other organizations, but it was still not clear that the results of benchmarking have influenced the the organisation’s cost reduction plans.

NAO chief, Amyas Morse, said:

‘The BBC has strengthened its approach to financial management which has helped it meet savings targets in the past. I welcome the improvements it has made.’

‘The BBC now needs to make sure it can monitor more frequently how its spending decisions align with its strategic and editorial priorities. This will put it in a better position to decide how best it uses its shrinking resource, in a way that offers value for money for the licence fee payer and still delivers the performance viewers and listeners expect.’

When comparing annual results against forecasts, the NAO found that the BBC has underspent against its forecast by at least 3% in each of the last four years, but it needed to be clear about how much resource could be available for reallocation.

The NAO also recommends that the BBC Trust and Ofcom work together to explore the scope for coordinating the information they require the BBC to report to them, as current separate reporting arrangements and timescales take up resources that could be better used elsewhere.

BBC Trustee, Anthony Fry, said:

‘We are pleased that the NAO has concluded that the BBC’s approach to managing its finances has improved and supports the BBC’s delivery of value for money for licence fee payers.’

‘At a time when the BBC’s resources are being squeezed and when it needs to achieve substantial savings over the next few years, getting this right is more important than ever and we will ensure that the improvements the executive has committed to make are delivered – and that it goes even further where possible.’

The BBC, which has had its licence fee frozen for the past two years, amassed £3.6bn through the licence fee in 2011-12, boosted by an additional £300m in commercial activities.

Interest Rate Swaps

HMRC has been lashed by a group of MPs for its treatment of businesses mis-sold interest rate swaps.

Tory MP, Guto Bebb, head of the all-party parliamentary group on swap mis-selling, said his political colleagues had “concerns” that the taxman was “rather less than sympathetic” when considering cases that included businesses mis-sold interest rate derivatives by lenders.

The Telegraph reports that the Welsh MP said that, while some banks accused of mis-selling swaps to small businesses did grant victims some form of grace and stop making payments while their cases were investigated, the taxman had been less favourable.

In a letter to Mike Eland, HMRC’s director general for enforcement and compliance, Bebb wrote:

‘It is very concerning to see that HMRC appears intent on pushing businesses that might well be eligible for redress into administration.’

A number of businesses have bemoaned the fact that HMRC has pursued tax demands against them even though they had flagged the fact that the financial burden of servicing their swap left them unable to pay.

An HMRC spokesman, said:

‘We are unable to comment on individual cases. HMRC offers a range of support to businesses in temporary financial difficulties, to help them manage their cash flow problems.’

‘Where businesses are facing genuine short term cash flow difficulties for whatever reason it is important they approach us as soon as they realise, so that we can consider early on whether time to pay is appropriate. HMRC is always happy to meet with recognised representative groups to discuss the needs of the groups they represent.’

Over 40,000 swaps are believed to have been sold to smaller businesses by banks.

Tax regime

The UK has gone up the global ranking of effective tax regimes for the first time in seven years, having previously slipped down the league.

The league, a result of a combined report, Paying Taxes, from the World Bank, PwC and the International Finance Corporation.

According to the latest report, the UK falls into 16th position, up two places from the previous year’s report but still far below the 11th spot it occupied in 2006.

The report - which compares tax systems across 185 economies by measuring total tax cost, number of payments and time to comply – revealed that the UK’s improvement is a result of its reduced rate of corporation tax as well as increased NIC thresholds.

In the report, the relative simplicity of the UK tax system has been compared with other economies. A medium sized UK business has to make eight tax payments a year (27.2 is the global average) and spend 110 hours on tax compliance (267 hours globally). Their Total Tax Rate is 35.5% compared with the global average of 44.7%.

The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong SAR, China were among the top 10 nations in which paying taxes proved to be easy for business while Cameroon, Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia proved to be the most burdensome countries.

On average across all the economies, a medium sized company pays a Total Tax Rate of 44.7% of profits, makes 27.2 payments, and spends 267 hours to comply with its tax requirements.

In the eight years since the study began, the time to comply has fallen by 54 hours, almost seven working days, and the number of payments has declined by more than six.

The average Total Tax Rate is almost flat on last year’s study, just 0.3% less. This compares with a fall of 3.3% the previous year.

The current report also confirms that regions with less complex tax regimes and lower tax costs experience stronger growth.

In addition, falling complexity across tax systems over the eight year course of the study is linked with an increase in GDP growth of around a quarter of a percentage point a year.

A 10% cut in the Total Tax Rate for medium sized businesses can be linked to increased inward investment of 0.7% per year and a rise in the annual economic growth rate of just under 0.1%.

PwC’s head of tax policy, Mary Monfries, said the UK government’s ‘open for business’ agenda has fed through to the league table of tax systems.

‘Ease of doing business is one of the UK’s strong points so it’s good we’ve made up some of the ground lost in recent years. Effective tax systems are good for growth. To keep on the map though, stability of policy and consistent messaging that encourages business investment will be crucial,’ said Monfries.

Monfries added that many UK businesses would probably be surprised if they heard their tax compliance burden was relatively light.

‘There’s scope to reduce red tape further, particularly when it comes to employment taxes which make up a big chunk of compliance time. Our study suggests that for medium sized firms the time spent having to deal with the tax system can have a bigger potential impact on economic growth than the rate of tax,’ she said.

Tax investiagtions backlog

There may be some £10.2bn at risk of being lost to the Treasury unless HMRC manages to successfully investigate its backlog of 41,000 cases of avoidance by private individuals and companies.

The stark figure was revealed by the National Audit Office (NAO) today in its report, Tax Avoidance: tackling marketed avoidance schemes by the National Audit Office, which looked at the effectiveness of the scheme that the government introduced in 2004.

The NAO revealed that more than 100 schemes had been disclosed under DOTAS but could not find evidence that the scheme has discouraged aggressive promoters or individuals from pursuing extremely complicated methods of avoiding paying their tax in full.

HMRC was also criticised for failing to monitor the costs of its work to tackle avoidance, as its approach is to identify and respond to all the risks it identifies to the effective collection of tax.

The report said:

‘Investigations into suspected non-compliance may or may not reveal that avoidance has taken place, or may uncover evidence of illegal tax evasion rather than avoidance. HMRC therefore does not collect management information on the resources it commits to tackling avoidance specifically. This limits its ability to make informed decisions about how it should best allocate resources to maximise its impact.’

In addition, the NAO has said that HMRC has been unable to enforce compliance with DOTAS on promoters determined to avoid disclosure as some promoters go to some lengths to avoid disclosing a scheme if they perceive an advantage in doing so.

The NAO stated:

‘Where a promoter has obtained a legal opinion that a scheme does not require disclosure, it can claim this represents ‘reasonable excuse’ and no penalty is applicable. Since September 2007, HMRC has opened 365 enquiries where it suspected a promoter had not complied with the disclosure rules, in most cases concluding that there had been no failure to comply. It has applied 11 penalties over that time, each of £5,000.’

The report does however recognised that DOTAS has helped HMRC to change tax law and prevent some types of avoidance activity, evidenced by 93 changes to tax law designed to reduce avoidance.

The NAO said that DOTAS had also helped to change the market of tax avoidance schemes, with the result that the larger accountancy firms are now less active in this area.

NAO head Amyas Morse has urged HMRC to ‘push harder to find an effective way’ to tackle the promoters and users of the most aggressive tax avoidance schemes.

Morse said:

‘Though its disclosure regime has helped to change the market, it has had little impact on the persistent use of highly contrived schemes which deprives the public purse of billions of pounds.’

‘It is inherently difficult to stop tax avoidance as it is not illegal. But HMRC needs to demonstrate how it is going to reduce the 41,000 avoidance cases it currently has open.’

The report is available from the NAO.

Savings

Savings hurt - this is why your savings are going down!

Pensions raid

A new tax raid on the pension contributions of wealthy voters is being pondered by George Osborne after he threw out the concept of a "wealth tax" based on bigger council bills for top end homes.

Having already vowed to deliver greater equilibrium in his cuts to achieve a further £10bn of benefit savings by 2015-16, the Chancellor is looking at ways to slap a raft of new taxes on the rich.

And while those close to Osborne denied to The Financial Times that such an approach is utterly removed from any deal struck with his Liberal Democrat coalition partners, the hunt for fresh revenue streams is building to a fiscal crescendo as the Autumn Statement deadline of 5 December, draws ever closer.

Before that key deadline, the Chancellor still has one more to think about - submitting his final proposals to the Office for Budget Responsibility by 28 November.

Osborne hooked up with his top coalition colleagues yesterday to explore the various tax pathways available to him.

In his 2010 Budget, the Chancellor slashed the maximum annual pension contribution exemption from tax from £255,000 to £50,000.

Many now believe he will go for even deeper cuts. By setting a new threshold of £40,000 he could generate an additional £600m of revenue, while even more ruthless deduction in the tax threshold to £30,000 would create some £1.8bn of cash flowing into the Treasury.

By lowering the annual cap even further, would dramatically help Deputy PM Nick Clegg’s plan to up the income tax threshold to £10,000.

Currently, the UK’s highest earners paying the top rate of 50% can claim up to 50% tax relief on their pension contributions, a deal which means that for every £1 pumped into pension pots, the government adds an extra 50p.

RTI once more

RTI was 'sold' as simplifying PAYE for employers.  However, the early feedback from the pilot group is that apparently only 10% of cases are seeing time and cost savings, while others report extra effort

Undeclared income

HMRC has launched an advertising campaign warning tax evaders to declare all their income before it is too late.

 

The campaign is running for two weeks from 12 November. It uses outdoor advertising with the slogan “We’re closing in on undeclared income”. There will be publicity in the national media including radio (but not television).

 

HMRC notes that most people pay the right tax – the campaign is aimed at those who don't. It has set up a website www.gov.uk/sortmytax to help those who want to sort things out and pay the correct tax.

 

David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said:

 

“Most people play by the rules and pay what they owe, but HMRC is cracking down on those who don’t. Using the £917m the Government has made available to tackle avoidance, evasion and fraud, HMRC is closing in on tax cheats.

 

“It always makes sense to declare all your income and tax dodgers are simply storing up trouble for the future; getting caught means higher fines, and in the most serious cases criminal prosecution. There is an alternative. Simply visit the new website and make a fresh start.”

Banker jailed

A City trader who lost £1.4bn ($2.2bn) of Swiss bank UBS's money has been found guilty of two counts of fraud.

Kweku Adoboli, 32, of Whitechapel, east London, denied four charges of false accounting and two of fraud between October 2008 and September 2011.

The prosecution told Southwark Crown Court he was "a gamble or two away from destroying Switzerland's largest bank".

Adoboli said he was encouraged to take risks by his bosses. He was cleared of four charges of false accounting.

Adoboli, who was arrested on 15 September 2011, worked in UBS's global synthetic equities division, buying and selling exchange traded funds (ETFs), which track stocks, bonds and commodities.

He had joined the bank as a junior trader in 2006.

The court was told Adoboli lost £1.4bn of the bank's money in "unprotected, unhedged, incautious and reckless" trades.

But Adoboli, the Ghana-born son of a diplomat, told the jury his senior managers were aware of his actions and encouraged him to take risks.
'Magic touch'
He claimed he lost control over his trades during a period of market turbulence last year.

The court heard that at one point he stood to lose the bank £7.5bn ($12bn).

The judge, Mr Justice Keith, gave the jury a majority verdict direction, saying they could deliver a 9-1 verdict on the remaining five charges.

The jury has been reduced to five men and five women after two jurors were discharged.

The prosecution said Adoboli was a gambler who believed he had the "magic touch".

But, giving evidence, Adoboli said everything he had done was aimed at benefiting the bank, where he viewed his colleagues as "family".

Adoboli said he had "lost control in the maelstrom of the financial crisis", and was doing well until he changed from a conservative "bearish" position to an aggressive "bullish" stance under pressure from senior managers.

He told the jury that staff were encouraged to take risks until they got "a slap on the back of the wrist".

HP/Autonomy

Computer maker Hewlett Packard has asked US and UK authorities to investigate alleged misrepresentations before its takeover of UK software group Autonomy last year.

This led to a $5bn (£3.1bn) charge in its latest quarterly accounts.

HP said it was "extremely disappointed" that Autonomy had appeared to have "inflated" the value of the company prior to the takeover.

"These efforts appear to have been a wilful effort to mislead," HP said.

The total one-off charge recorded in HP's accounts for the three months to the end of October was $8.8bn, pushing the company to a $6.85bn net loss.

Senior exec pay

HMRC is stepping up its investigations into taxes which may be underpaid by the directors and senior executives of the UK’s largest companies in an effort to recover more from the 50p rate of tax.

HMRC’s Large Business Service – responsible for the taxes paid by the 770 largest businesses in the UK – is investigating directors and senior executives for £400m worth of underpaid taxes – including PAYE, and National Insurance Contributions (NICs), Pinsent Masons says.

According to the firm, this is 43% higher than the £280m under investigation last year, driven by the upswing in HMRC compliance activity, as well as investigations into avoidance linked to the 50p tax rate and the temporary special tax on bank bonuses.

Jason Collins, Partner at Pinsent Masons, said that HMRC has increased its focus on executives as they are a potentially lucrative source of extra tax revenue – particularly with executive pay rocketing over recent times.

‘HMRC has taken a particular interest in cases where income or an individual’s role at a company has been structured to reduce their tax burden, particularly their PAYE or NICs.

‘The introduction of new taxes for higher earners, such as the 50p marginal tax rate, mean HMRC will be on increased alert for any new forms of tax avoidance. The 50p tax brought in less than expected, so this may have set alarm bells ringing for tax investigators,’ said Collins.

Collins added that HMRC will look at whether ‘abusive’ tax avoidance or evasion had taken place, and will demand extra tax if they feel it is due.

The value of tax HMRC has under investigation is understood to have also been boosted by its recent increased effort to bring in as much extra tax as possible, and by added powers gained to tackle ‘disguised remuneration’ – where pay that would normally be subject to income tax or NIC is artificially structured in a such a way that these are avoided.

‘HMRC has been set some daunting targets to hit in terms of cracking down on tax avoidance, so inspectors will be broadening their scope when identifying taxes that they think have been underpaid.

‘There are things that HMRC previously wouldn’t have looked at too closely, but now it will. HMRC has also been given new tools to tackle disguised remuneration and they haven’t been afraid to use them,’ said Collins.

Pinsent Masons adds that the jump in tax under consideration by HMRC suggests that the government may have been right to change tack on the 50p tax rate.

Said Collins: ‘As the government has said, and as these figures suggest, the 50p tax rate struggled to produce the yield that was expected. It has proved to be too easy for individuals and companies to find ways of not paying them through tax planning – probably assisted by the expectation that the rate was only intended as a short term measure so planning could merely involve delaying the receipt of income.’

Landlords in the frame

The rag trade, the alcohol industry and the rental property market are the latest targets of HMRC’s crackdown on tax cheats in businesses across the UK.

The taskforces launched today (19 November) will be carrying out spot checks and analysing the records of rag traders in the Midlands, North Wales and the North West as well as those involved in the production, distribution and selling of alcohol in Scotland.

Several MPs who are facing fresh public scrutiny over profits made from renting out tax-payer financed accommodation could come under the spotlight as the taxman as landlords of property in the South East will also be targeted.

HMRC expects to recoup an estimated £17m in unpaid tax from the three taskforces and Jennie Granger, director general enforcement and compliance at HMRC, said: ‘HMRC is serious about tackling people who are not paying what they should. Anyone deliberately evading tax should watch out – HMRC is closing in on tax cheats.’

According to David Gauke, the Exchequer secretary, HMRC is ‘on target’ to collect more than £50m from taskforces since their launch last year. He said: ‘The vast majority of people play by the rules. We will not tolerate tax evasion and will crack down on the minority who choose to break the rules.’

MPs expenses

Just two years after the MPs expenses scandal, new evidence has emerged that politicians are still abusing the system.

Over 30 MPs have been revealed to be claiming rent for their second homes on expenses while letting out property nearby, a Channel 4 Dispatches probe has revealed.

Among the MPs are former Cabinet ministers who are claiming up to £20,000 in annual expenses for rent, while receiving money from properties often bought and refurbished with funds bankrolled by hard-pressed taxpayer.

In October, news emerged that 27 MPs were letting out their second homes while charging the taxpayer for renting another property.

Dispatches has now uncovered a further five — a trio of MPs engaged in the practice in the capital and a further brace renting and letting properties in their constituencies.

The Telegraph reports that the MPs to be named in tonight’s programme who are renting out homes in London are the Conservative chairman of the culture, media and sport committee, John Whittingdale and former Labour cabinet minister, John Denham.

The programme’s investigative team also discovered that Labour’s Michael Meacher had moved out of his Oldham home to rent a new property, while ex Labour minister, Pat McFadden, had done the same in Wolverhampton.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) rules clearly state that “members of Parliament must not exploit the system for personal financial advantage”.

But the MPs are adamant that they have done no wrong, and were compelled to act by new IPSA rules banning claims for mortgage interest payments from the end of August.

IPSA is due to publish the names of the landlords of more than 300 MPs later today, in a move set to provoke the ire of Speaker, John Bercow, who is set against any such disclosures.

The revelations will lower even further the standing of MPs following the damaging revelations of the 2009 expenses scandal. Then, a series of deeply embarrassing stories emerged of politicians ‘flipping’ their homes for their own financial advantage at the taxpayers’ expense, as well as MPs collectively claiming hundreds of thousands of pounds for items such as a duck house and the draining of a moat.

Fraud

An accountant has admitted stealing at least £34,700 from a brain injury charity to pay off a supermarket credit card bill.

David Field, of Glewstone, near Ross-on-Wye, pleaded guilty to several fraud charges at Hereford Crown Court on Monday.

The court heard how Field, who was employed by Herefordshire Headway as an accountant, siphoned off the charity’s funds to pay off debts on a Tesco credit card debt and council tax.

The 56-year-old failed to tell the charity that he had a previous criminal conviction for fraud and falsely claimed to have a Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) qualification.

Judge Daniel Pearce- Higgins QC heard how Field also spent the charity’s money on a stay at a London hotel and various “unattractive uses of the card”.

The frauds were committed between April 2010 and January 2011.

Field took at least £34,796 from the charity, which works throughout Herefordshire to rehabilitate those afflicted with brain injuries induced from strokes and accidents.

The judge said the court could take into consideration the £9,000 salary Field was paid, making the total over £43,000.

Field was granted bail until the end of November when he is due back in court sentencing.