HMRC to crackdown on side-hustles

the shady practices will get shadier as those that need try to protect themselves, their families and their income.
non registered taxi drivers and the likes, takeaway pickups advertised off platform
potatolord said:
If this is anything more than a half-hearted publicity stunt they're going to catch a lot of under-payers.
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just not the ones earning millions and paying next to nowt, oh wait that some of our gov reps aint it?

and what about the big companies reporting repeatedly higher profits per quarter for things that are essential to everyday life?


meanwhile there's ppl in the UK struggling for simple things like shopping and bills.
 
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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
The rich do follow tax regulations. At times people think they have found some massive loophole that rarely ends well.

There are many groups who avoid tax.
People with side hustles
People who move location (eg to Monaco like Hamilton)
People who can structure well
Companies that can be registered elsewhere
etc

The problem with a lot of our tax law is its old, it was mainly written on the presumption that individuals and companies were native. IE UK based, owned etc
And the vast majority probably were 40 years ago.
Simply the tax law has failed to keep up with globalisation.
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Yeah I am aware of all of the above.
I dont see how that justifies to go hunting the smaller individuals that may be missing some tax here and there, but are not outright avoiding it through X Y Z.

Again my problem is they are choosing to pick on individuals at a time of crisis and potential recessions that are a result of the government. Lets go after the little guy, after we have been kicking the little guy in the street for 13 years already. Its time to take aim and deal with the large corporations and scum bags who truly hide their wealth, not ordinary individuals wishing to survive the current climate.

The question is, why do you and others feel it is okay to attack the individuals wishing to survive and ensure they pay the right amount of tax, but are happy to sit behind "oh but its tax rules problems" when it comes to large corporations clearly not paying the correct amount of tax or hiding their true wealth.
 
sidimmu said:
The question is, why do you and others feel it is okay to attack the individuals wishing to survive and ensure they pay the right amount of tax, but are happy to sit behind "oh but its tax rules problems" when it comes to large corporations clearly not paying the correct amount of tax or hiding their true wealth.
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For many I suspect it boils down to equivalency - i'm not Amazon or Google and I never will be, i'm not comparable to a mega corporation, it's completely unrelatable to my personal situation even if it's completely wrong.

What is relatable though is Dave and Emma down the road who have decided to start flogging tat on Etsy/Amazon, running about as an Uber driver during the evening etc. and have also decided they're simply not going to declare any or all of that income so they don't pay tax on it, whilst you and I sit here watching our fair share disappear via PAYE. I think it's only natural, even if it's not entirely logical, that it irks people when it's so close to home.
 
Kenai said:
What is relatable though is Dave and Emma down the road who have decided to start flogging tat on Etsy/Amazon, running about as an Uber driver during the evening etc. and have also decided they're simply not going to declare any or all of that income so they don't pay tax on it, whilst you and I sit here watching our fair share disappear via PAYE. I think it's only natural, even if it's not entirely logical, that it irks people when it's so close to home.
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So lets attack Dave, Emma and their 3 kids they are doing everything they can to keep their head above water. But as that is so close to home, we must focus on it.
When it comes to amazon and google, well tax problems, they hide behind it, so we should hide behind it for them too.

For ref, I agree Dave and Emma should be taxed if it meets criteria etc, but do I think we should shift focus on to individuals and just take the route of " big corps are hard to prove due to resources, X Y Z, we shall continue to let them get away with it", no we bloody should not. Corps should always face the tax man first, I say this as a Ltd Business owner.
 
sidimmu said:
Yeah I am aware of all of the above.
I dont see how that justifies to go hunting the smaller individuals that may be missing some tax here and there, but are not outright avoiding it through X Y Z.

Again my problem is they are choosing to pick on individuals at a time of crisis and potential recessions that are a result of the government. Lets go after the little guy, after we have been kicking the little guy in the street for 13 years already. Its time to take aim and deal with the large corporations and scum bags who truly hide their wealth, not ordinary individuals wishing to survive the current climate.

The question is, why do you and others feel it is okay to attack the individuals wishing to survive and ensure they pay the right amount of tax, but are happy to sit behind "oh but its tax rules problems" when it comes to large corporations clearly not paying the correct amount of tax or hiding their true wealth.
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I posted up above about the allowance you get. If people are exceeding that, driving uber or etsy or whatever I absolutely think they deserve to be paying the correct tax. That is completely unconnected to my position in regards mega corps, the super rich etc.

There have been moves to close down the loopholes and complicated tax arrangements of large corps, but it requires global cooperation or you risk making yourself a pariah state.

If you have followed my posts on this forum recently but also previously you would know I argue for wealth taxation to replace 50% of income taxation.
I have formed this view after many years in the accountancy profession as I watched the tax rate for the normals, ie the bottom 90% or so increasingly falling out of line with the very top and the companies.
 
sidimmu said:
So lets attack Dave, Emma and their 3 kids they are doing everything they can to keep their head above water. But as that is so close to home, we must focus on it.
When it comes to amazon and google, well tax problems, they hide behind it, so we should hide behind it for them too.

For ref, I agree Dave and Emma should be taxed if it meets criteria etc, but do I think we should shift focus on to individuals and just take the route of " big corps are hard to prove due to resources, X Y Z, we shall continue to let them get away with it", no we bloody should not. Corps should always face the tax man first, I say this as a Ltd Business owner.
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Not so much as "lets attack them" but "we're paying our fair share, so i'm not going to jump straight in to fight their (probably illegitimate) fight when someone goes after them for their fair share too".

It shouldn't be an either/or situation - HMRC should have the capacity and capability to be chasing down everyone, big or small, but whilst they don't, there's only so much sympathy I can muster for whoever they do choose to go after if those people are taking the ****.

Would I prefer they went after the big corps first? Probably. Am I going to shed a tear for Dave and Emma because they won't be able to get away with not paying tax on their side income soon? No, not really.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
I posted up above about the allowance you get. If people are exceeding that, driving uber or etsy or whatever I absolutely think they deserve to be paying the correct tax. That is completely unconnected to my position in regards mega corps, the super rich etc.

There have been moves to close down the loopholes and complicated tax arrangements of large corps, but it requires global cooperation or you risk making yourself a pariah state.

If you have followed my posts on this forum recently but also previously you would know I argue for wealth taxation to replace 50% of income taxation.
I have formed this view after many years in the accountancy profession as I watched the tax rate for the normals, ie the bottom 90% or so increasingly falling out of line with the very top and the companies.
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I respect that and understand that. Reality, the loopholes are not going to get closed anytime soon, so can you answer; Why we should focus on individuals in a cost of living crisis? Why should we not focus on corporations who would contribute the most and make the bigger difference.

Kenai said:
It shouldn't be an either/or situation - HMRC should have the capacity and capability to be chasing down everyone, big or small, but whilst they don't, there's only so much sympathy I can muster for whoever they do choose to go after if those people are taking the ****.
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Whats taking the **** though? Tax bill of 5k missing? 50k missing?
If 20k people are missing a tax bill of 10k, yeah thats a chunk of cash and needs sorting.
The reality is, a lot of these side hustles wont cause a tax bill that large, but the corporations who are hiding millions upon millions of pounds, continue to get away with it and other users sit in here and just say "thats the rules, let them get on with it, Dave and Emma, serves you right for being scummy." Whilst their employer is the one hiding the millions.

I do agree with a majority of your points, just feel we should not be focusing on individuals currently, unless we can see clear issues where they should be owing 20k worth of tax or more etc. Thats my figure for ref,
 
sidimmu said:
I respect that and understand that. Reality, the loopholes are not going to get closed anytime soon, so can you answer; Why we should focus on individuals in a cost of living crisis? Why should we not focus on corporations who would contribute the most and make the bigger difference.


Whats taking the **** though? Tax bill of 5k missing? 50k missing?
If 20k people are missing a tax bill of 10k, yeah thats a chunk of cash and needs sorting.
The reality is, a lot of these side hustles wont cause a tax bill that large, but the corporations who are hiding millions upon millions of pounds, continue to get away with it and other users sit in here and just say "thats the rules, let them get on with it, Dave and Emma, serves you right for being scummy." Whilst their employer is the one hiding the millions.

I do agree with a majority of your points, just feel we should not be focusing on individuals currently, unless we can see clear issues where they should be owing 20k worth of tax or more etc. Thats my figure for ref,
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The COL crisis is irrelevant in regards paying the tax you owe.
 
sidimmu said:
Whats taking the **** though?
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Not declaring your income so you can avoid paying tax on it. It doesn't matter a huge amount to me personally whether it's £500 or £50,000, though I would assume HMRC would look to maximise return vs effort by going after the bigger numbers first.

Like I said, would I rather they went after corps first? Probably. I won't be getting upset on behalf of people who have decided for themselves they deserve not to pay tax on their income though.
 
They are cracking down on the large companies and being efficient in getting a return on effort.

The employers have been taking advantage of gig work and tax dodging. Having thousands of "gig workers" instead of PAYE employees means you can pay out more money than PAYE and create thousands and thousands of small cases of unpaid tax when the gig workers mysteriously fail to declare income and pay tax.

So HMRC rocks up to the employers door and says the party is over, you're now responsible for declaring your gig workers income.
 
sidimmu said:
People take side hustles to survive the COL, duhhhhh.

Fancy answering my original question;
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Its still irrelevant. If your need for income goes up, you shouldn't get a tax exemption, unless its a tax exemption for all.

We have already answered your original question. They are going after companies as well, its just that its not as easy.
They need to change the rules to make companies pay more.
They don't need to change the rules to close the gap on individuals who are not paying what they should.

One is legal, one is illegal.
 
It's not a binary choice about who the government and civil service decide to pursue for tax owed.

There's vast swathes of HMRC and probably the wider civil service who spend every day at work devising, developing and applying a strategy to get the big corporations to pay what they owe. It's a global issue that the UK can't tackle alone.

There's others who pursue the small businesses and individuals.

As One More Solo alluded to, by all accounts the amount that multinationals avoid by transfer pricing and general tax avoidance is relatively low compared to the overall tax gap. Small businesses and individuals together make up over 60% of the tax gap, whereas mid sized and large businesses make up 22% combined.
 
I dunno, I don't condone people that don't declare their income for tax, but I can certainly understand and even emphasise why you would.

And the thing with being a small self employed type that transacts in cash then under declares is that there is only so much you can do with the money, you cant really bank it, so you keep £100k in cash under the bed, what you gonna do with that?

Want a mortgage on a half a million pound house, lender says, ok sir, how to planning on affording those payments with your income of £12k p/a?

Save enough to buy it outright, solicitors says, so where did you get all that cash from?

Sure you can buy all your groceries etc with cash, but even cars etc you'd need to be careful.

I guess you could regularly buy gold, or possibly wash it through gambling on 50/50 bets etc, I am sure there are ways.

I used to frequent a burger van, and the guy reckoned he earned about £40k a year, he was declaring something like £10k and claiming some kind of working benefit, as it was all cash. This was a few years before covid but I bet that throughly screwed him.
 
Reading some of these responses makes me wonder if they would do anything, or if they just rely on the scare tactic to get people to pay. I agree on who they pick though, it's the low hanging fruit. Lots of these big corporations have headquarters in places to dodge tax which shouldn't be allowed, but I bet that they are paying backhanders to the mps to keep those loopholes in place. Isn't amazon based in Jersey to dodge tax?
 
theone8181 said:
Reading some of these responses makes me wonder if they would do anything, or if they just rely on the scare tactic to get people to pay. I agree on who they pick though, it's the low hanging fruit. Lots of these big corporations have headquarters in places to dodge tax which shouldn't be allowed, but I bet that they are paying backhanders to the mps to keep those loopholes in place. Isn't amazon based in Jersey to dodge tax?
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luxembourg IIRC
 
DanTheMan said:
As One More Solo alluded to, by all accounts the amount that multinationals avoid by transfer pricing and general tax avoidance is relatively low compared to the overall tax gap. Small businesses and individuals together make up over 60% of the tax gap, whereas mid sized and large businesses make up 22% combined.
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So who’s the other 18%?
 
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