No place for amnesty in informal economy pilots

Posted by AccountingWEB PM | on Tue, 08/02/2005 - 10:15 2022 1 comment

Pilot projects to help people leave the informal economy are under way but none of them involves an amnesty, the Treasury has said.

The Mail on Sunday reported at the weekend that small businesses are being offered a "partial amnesty for their past misdeeds" under a Treasury pilot scheme.

"In return for coming clean about previous earnings and making a 'compromise' settlement of what they owe, they will be able to come in from the cold," the report said.

It added that business organis

Continued...

They'd better not ...

Anonymous | Tue, 08/02/2005 - 12:13 | Permalink

... even think about it !
An amnesty for those who have played fast and loose with the system, while cracking down on those small businesses which observe the rules, and pay the proper (legally required) amount of tax - and have been rewarded with things like IR35, NCD and a reinterpretation of s660A ?
"A number of pilot proposals for working with non government bodies to help people get out of the informal economy are already under development, but none of them contemplates an amnesty."
The problem is that official denials tend to be followed by implementation of exactly the thing that was denied.