There is an issue that the protection afforded by limited liability has been massively eroded over recent years.
While I don't condone any form of criminality, there are all kinds of things which fall under corporate negligence, Health & Safety etc where a director can be held personally liable for the actions (or failures) of staff or subcontractors, or even just bad luck. I many cases (even a majority), if a limited company wants to borrow money or rent a premises the directors have to sign personal guarantees.
I haven't seen a good explanation of how publishing a P&L would reduce fraud when Companies House doesn't appear to do any form of basic due diligence or compliance checks right now. Just as an example, I recently discovered a business where the registered address was a block of flats I knew personally had been demolished about three years ago.
So if my neighbours are going to be able to go online and see what I earn, I think it's only fair for HMRC to put everyone's P60's online for public inspection so I can do the same back to them ! After all, it'll deter fraud.... won't it ?
What, apart from raising more in stamp duty and pushing more buyers into higher stamp duty brackets ? Improved housing stock should deliver more Council Tax revenue, although I suspect central government doesn't care about that as it's a local issue.
As I recall, the value of mortgages taken out is included in GDP figures (at a time when the government wants to show the economy bouncing back), while mortgage rate inflation is currently relatively low compared to inflation on imported goods, thus artificially lowering the inflation rate.
So yes, I'd say the government definitely has a vested interest in pushing up house prices, even before the individual benefits derived from their own personal real estate portfolios !
It's a shame that public bodies aren't compelled to become signatories. At a quick glance at the list, it appears only about 50% of county councils and a far smaller number of borough councils have joined the scheme. Likewise, the number of government departments is quite low.
Amazon, Google, Esso and other large multinationals are also notable by their absence, and I just had to chuckle when I saw BAE Systems there - I had first hand credit control interactions with them a few years ago, but maybe leopards really do change their spots (hopefully quicker than the 6-12 months they used to take to pay invoices !)
Amazon and eBay are (generally) a much simpler case, at least in theory.
The third party seller is fully responsible for VAT on the goods they sell on the platform, under normal VAT rules. There is an issue of Chinese sellers evading VAT, but that's more a compliance issue than a rules-based one.
The marketplace charges the seller fees for the service they provide, which is that of selling on their platform. Those fees are subject to VAT; the main difference between eBay and Amazon being that eBay UK charges UK VAT, while Amazon is (notionally !) domiciled in Luxembourg. If a seller is UK VAT registered, then reverse charge rules for services are applied. This may change after Brexit; my personal opinion is that it should, the platforms should have a UK entity for the services they provide in order to reduce their scope for tax avoidance.
In terms of the new Digital Services Tax, eBay have been ethical and agreed to absorb it. Amazon will be adding it to the fees they charge third party sellers (thus defeating the entire purpose of the tax).
In terms of the level of control third party sellers have, that's an interesting discussion all of it's own ! Again, Amazon are the elephant in the room here, and for FBA sellers at least, it could be argued that Amazon has 100% control of the service and delivery, with very significant influence over the price (they effectively apply price caps and provide "guidance" as to what the price should be), and that the FBA sellers are merely providing Amazon with off-books inventory. It's only a matter of time before a seller argues that Amazon should treat them as PAYE !
Just think of all that lovely granular de-anonymised data NatWest will get !
I wonder how it will feed into the loan application (and more importantly, rate-setting) process. Could it help them identify assets to acquire in the way RBS's now discredited business recovery unit did ? Which marketing agencies and other third parties will NatWest sell the data to ?
We've already seen letters from random water companies no-one's heard of before claiming to be the new supplier, sometimes including Direct Debit mandates which they "require" to be filled in and returned urgently.
Looks like all the dodgy salesmen who used to bounce people's contracts for the power companies are going to have a new happy hunting ground.
I agree with this in principle, because it is reasonable for those e-tailers who follow the rules and pay the correct tax, VAT etc should have a level playing field rather than having to compete against those who choose the path of tax evasion (which is what it is, not avoidance, if you choose not to pay tax on online sales). It is also reasonable that HMRC look for badges of trade as the test of whether it's someone just clearing their loft, or actively trading.
However, I trust that HMRC sought the appropriate warrants etc in order to get Amazon, eBay etc to hand over the records. Otherwise, it would be a clear breach of customer confidentiality by those platforms.
It would also be rather nice if HMRC were to try to apply correct import duties to Chinese sellers masquerading as having a UK location (usually selling on eBay & Amazon) and then shipping at highly subsidised postage costs from China and marking the value down and sending the products as "gifts"
Kobi - you should probably start a new thread rather then taking this one off topic.
For what it's worth, the first thing you should do is gather all the evidence you have to prove what has happened. Have you contacted your accountant to see what they say ? If they are avoiding contact, talk to their professional body, assuming they have one.
But if the situation is as serious as you make it sound, people on a forum can only offer so much help, you really need to get professional advice, both from a good accountant, and possibly also from a solicitor. If you genuinely think your ex-accountant has stolen the money, you'll need very good documentary evidence, both to go to the police with if it comes to that, and also to avoid being accused of slander if it turns out that it's a false accusation.
You need to keep in contact with HMRC, but ideally appoint an accountant you trust to do this for you, to ensure that HMRC don't try to intimidate you into agreeing anything you shouldn't. Good luck.
Blame the previous board for over-inflated asset values, then write them down so you've got billions in losses to offset against the next few years' profits, and hey presto, a significantly reduced Corporation Tax bill.
So that explains why Margaret Hodge (in her role as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee) attacked HMRC's handling of reliefs and the reliefs themselves so vigorously yesterday.
Clearly the next strand of attack; make people claiming relief seem like tax dodgers, in the same way they have with people trying to minimise the tax they pay through avoidance schemes. I wonder if they will create retrospective legislation to claw back previously-legal reliefs ?
My answers
There is an issue that the protection afforded by limited liability has been massively eroded over recent years.
While I don't condone any form of criminality, there are all kinds of things which fall under corporate negligence, Health & Safety etc where a director can be held personally liable for the actions (or failures) of staff or subcontractors, or even just bad luck. I many cases (even a majority), if a limited company wants to borrow money or rent a premises the directors have to sign personal guarantees.
I haven't seen a good explanation of how publishing a P&L would reduce fraud when Companies House doesn't appear to do any form of basic due diligence or compliance checks right now. Just as an example, I recently discovered a business where the registered address was a block of flats I knew personally had been demolished about three years ago.
So if my neighbours are going to be able to go online and see what I earn, I think it's only fair for HMRC to put everyone's P60's online for public inspection so I can do the same back to them ! After all, it'll deter fraud.... won't it ?
What, apart from raising more in stamp duty and pushing more buyers into higher stamp duty brackets ? Improved housing stock should deliver more Council Tax revenue, although I suspect central government doesn't care about that as it's a local issue.
As I recall, the value of mortgages taken out is included in GDP figures (at a time when the government wants to show the economy bouncing back), while mortgage rate inflation is currently relatively low compared to inflation on imported goods, thus artificially lowering the inflation rate.
So yes, I'd say the government definitely has a vested interest in pushing up house prices, even before the individual benefits derived from their own personal real estate portfolios !
It's a shame that public bodies aren't compelled to become signatories. At a quick glance at the list, it appears only about 50% of county councils and a far smaller number of borough councils have joined the scheme. Likewise, the number of government departments is quite low.
Amazon, Google, Esso and other large multinationals are also notable by their absence, and I just had to chuckle when I saw BAE Systems there - I had first hand credit control interactions with them a few years ago, but maybe leopards really do change their spots (hopefully quicker than the 6-12 months they used to take to pay invoices !)
Amazon and eBay are (generally) a much simpler case, at least in theory.
The third party seller is fully responsible for VAT on the goods they sell on the platform, under normal VAT rules. There is an issue of Chinese sellers evading VAT, but that's more a compliance issue than a rules-based one.
The marketplace charges the seller fees for the service they provide, which is that of selling on their platform. Those fees are subject to VAT; the main difference between eBay and Amazon being that eBay UK charges UK VAT, while Amazon is (notionally !) domiciled in Luxembourg. If a seller is UK VAT registered, then reverse charge rules for services are applied. This may change after Brexit; my personal opinion is that it should, the platforms should have a UK entity for the services they provide in order to reduce their scope for tax avoidance.
In terms of the new Digital Services Tax, eBay have been ethical and agreed to absorb it. Amazon will be adding it to the fees they charge third party sellers (thus defeating the entire purpose of the tax).
In terms of the level of control third party sellers have, that's an interesting discussion all of it's own ! Again, Amazon are the elephant in the room here, and for FBA sellers at least, it could be argued that Amazon has 100% control of the service and delivery, with very significant influence over the price (they effectively apply price caps and provide "guidance" as to what the price should be), and that the FBA sellers are merely providing Amazon with off-books inventory. It's only a matter of time before a seller argues that Amazon should treat them as PAYE !
Just think of all that lovely granular de-anonymised data NatWest will get !
I wonder how it will feed into the loan application (and more importantly, rate-setting) process. Could it help them identify assets to acquire in the way RBS's now discredited business recovery unit did ? Which marketing agencies and other third parties will NatWest sell the data to ?
We've already seen letters from random water companies no-one's heard of before claiming to be the new supplier, sometimes including Direct Debit mandates which they "require" to be filled in and returned urgently.
Looks like all the dodgy salesmen who used to bounce people's contracts for the power companies are going to have a new happy hunting ground.
I agree with this in principle, because it is reasonable for those e-tailers who follow the rules and pay the correct tax, VAT etc should have a level playing field rather than having to compete against those who choose the path of tax evasion (which is what it is, not avoidance, if you choose not to pay tax on online sales). It is also reasonable that HMRC look for badges of trade as the test of whether it's someone just clearing their loft, or actively trading.
However, I trust that HMRC sought the appropriate warrants etc in order to get Amazon, eBay etc to hand over the records. Otherwise, it would be a clear breach of customer confidentiality by those platforms.
It would also be rather nice if HMRC were to try to apply correct import duties to Chinese sellers masquerading as having a UK location (usually selling on eBay & Amazon) and then shipping at highly subsidised postage costs from China and marking the value down and sending the products as "gifts"
Kobi - you should probably start a new thread rather then taking this one off topic.
For what it's worth, the first thing you should do is gather all the evidence you have to prove what has happened. Have you contacted your accountant to see what they say ? If they are avoiding contact, talk to their professional body, assuming they have one.
But if the situation is as serious as you make it sound, people on a forum can only offer so much help, you really need to get professional advice, both from a good accountant, and possibly also from a solicitor. If you genuinely think your ex-accountant has stolen the money, you'll need very good documentary evidence, both to go to the police with if it comes to that, and also to avoid being accused of slander if it turns out that it's a false accusation.
You need to keep in contact with HMRC, but ideally appoint an accountant you trust to do this for you, to ensure that HMRC don't try to intimidate you into agreeing anything you shouldn't. Good luck.
An impressive piece of tax avoidance !
Blame the previous board for over-inflated asset values, then write them down so you've got billions in losses to offset against the next few years' profits, and hey presto, a significantly reduced Corporation Tax bill.
So that explains why Margaret Hodge (in her role as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee) attacked HMRC's handling of reliefs and the reliefs themselves so vigorously yesterday.
Clearly the next strand of attack; make people claiming relief seem like tax dodgers, in the same way they have with people trying to minimise the tax they pay through avoidance schemes. I wonder if they will create retrospective legislation to claw back previously-legal reliefs ?