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Failing to report
I understand that at the relevant time Mr Housley was the Money Laundering Reporting Officer for the solicitors' firm in which he was a partner.
That may have influenced the decision to prosecute him for failing to report a suspicion as well as for his own involvement in money laundering.
David
Wondered about the wife's wage too
At what point does a "wife's wage" become grown up, sent to jail fraud and not spend a few months arguing with HMRC about the scope of her duties & market value of the services provided before agreeing a settlement?
Wife's wages
The HMRC website includes this
He was also found guilty of income tax fraud as he falsely claimed that his wife was an employee of the partnership, in order to avoid paying additional higher rate tax. The income tax fraud amounted to a tax loss of £39,147.33. Housley was jailed today for six months on the income tax fraud, six months on failure to report criminal activity, and four years for money laundering at Edinburgh High Court. All sentences to run concurrently.
I only know what I have seen in the media but it sounds to me as if Mr Housley reported some of his own profit share (he was a partner in a firm of solicitors) as if it were income of his wife. It may be that in the accounts of the firm his wife was not treated as an employee at all. If that is the case then it was not simply a matter of debating what figure of wife's wages would fairly reflect her duties - it was a matter of misrepresenting whether she was an employee at all.
David
Wifes Wages
That sounds more reasonable and far more likely than just a case of attributing some element to the wife as wages. As with all these things there is I suspect far more to the case than the headline suggests.
Solicitors & wife wages
Wife's wages for wives that stay at home doing their nails would be on my top five inquiry questions for solicitors, if I was an inspector.
Solicitors have therefore been given a warning?
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