Tax & Accounting News

Tax dodgers set to be exposed

09/03/2010

Individuals who do not pay their taxes face being ‘named and shamed’ by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) from next month if they have avoided paying more than £25,000 of tax.

The new policy was announced in last year’s budget and will apply to tax dodging committed on or after 1 April 2010 – meaning the first names and addresses are unlikely to be posted on HMRC’s website until 2011.

People who are investigated and found to have deliberately avoided tax can expect to be identified, although they will be given the opportunity to plead any mitigating circumstances before their identities are revealed.

Stephen Timms MP, financial secretary to the treasury, said the prospect of bad publicity was intended to be an added deterrent to tax fraud, on top of the existing financial penalties.