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Taxing matters

13 February 2019 / Peter Vaines
Issue: 7828 / Categories: Features , Commercial , Tax
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One size fits none. In the pursuit of compliance, HMRC has chosen to treat everyone like a tax cheat, says Peter Vaines
  • Through its attempts to encourage compliance and penalise wrongdoers, HMRC has created a bullying culture of trying to catch people out, collecting tax which is not due, and forcing people into submission without regard to the rights and wrongs of their case.
  • A culture of trust and compliance should be the goal—and that is achieved by respect, not by fear.

‘I have a dream,’ somebody rather important once said.

I too have a dream—rather less important—but if it could turn into reality, it would make a lot of difference to a lot of people. It is all to do with tax and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

Liars, cheats & law-abiding citizens

There is increasing disquiet about the deteriorating relationship between HMRC and taxpayers, and this obviously is a matter of real importance to taxpayers— and a matter of deep regret to professionals in the field. It

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NEWS
The government’s plan to introduce a Single Professional Services Supervisor could erode vital legal-sector expertise, warns Mark Evans, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, in NLJ this week
Writing in NLJ this week, Jonathan Fisher KC of Red Lion Chambers argues that the ‘failure to prevent’ model of corporate criminal responsibility—covering bribery, tax evasion, and fraud—should be embraced, not resisted
Professor Graham Zellick KC argues in NLJ this week that, despite Buckingham Palace’s statement stripping Andrew Mountbatten Windsor of his styles, titles and honours, he remains legally a duke
Writing in NLJ this week, Sophie Ashcroft and Miranda Joseph of Stevens & Bolton dissect the Privy Council’s landmark ruling in Jardine Strategic Ltd v Oasis Investments II Master Fund Ltd (No 2), which abolishes the long-standing 'shareholder rule'
In NLJ this week, Sailesh Mehta and Theo Burges of Red Lion Chambers examine the government’s first-ever 'Afghan leak' super-injunction—used to block reporting of data exposing Afghans who aided UK forces and over 100 British officials. Unlike celebrity privacy cases, this injunction centred on national security. Its use, the authors argue, signals the rise of a vast new body of national security law spanning civil, criminal, and media domains
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