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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

Privacy and tax investigation

IslandMan
Posts:6
Joined:Sat Apr 01, 2017 11:55 am
Privacy and tax investigation

Postby IslandMan » Tue Apr 11, 2017 1:33 pm

Dear all
I am new to this having become a sole trader recently using my personal account to get paid in to.
I have a few current account s to maximise interest rates - thanks to Martin Lewis.
In the event of hmrc investigation, is the tax man able to request to see all of my account s or only the one i use for business.
I have heard that your passport and various other documents can be requested which means one may not be able to travel.
Are they able to contact people who pay you for your service s? How bad does it get? Is it possible to keep any privacy?

SteLacca
Posts:448
Joined:Fri Aug 07, 2015 2:17 pm

Re: Privacy and tax investigation

Postby SteLacca » Tue Apr 11, 2017 4:09 pm

HMRC can request anything that they reasonably need to ascertain your correct tax position. If you are asked for something and deem it unreasonable, and in the event that HMRC disagree with you, you would have to fight it at Tribunal.

bd6759
Posts:4262
Joined:Sat Feb 01, 2014 3:26 pm

Re: Privacy and tax investigation

Postby bd6759 » Tue Apr 11, 2017 6:23 pm

HMRC will usually only ask for your business records. That will include all banks accounts you use to pay in income or meet business expenses from. They will only ask to see your personal acounts if they have reason to believe that you have not declared all of your earnings. That needs to be a reasonably held belief. They will normally conduct a means test to see if you have declared sufficient income to accumulate capital and meet your living expenses. If it doesn't add up, that will give them a reasonable belief,

HMRC can contact anyone for information, but that power is limited. They usually have to ask you to get the information the want before going direct to third parties.

They cannot keep your passport, but may ask to see it to verify any foreign travel you incurred.

susandan82
Posts:3
Joined:Thu May 11, 2017 1:21 pm

Re: Privacy and tax investigation

Postby susandan82 » Tue Jul 11, 2017 2:32 am

effect of increased tax compliance due to the anticipated shame of being declared a tax evader. Both these effects are supported by the experimental results. However, the shame effect reduces tax evasion only in the short run. The influence of shame diminishes over the course of the experiment with subjects observing the non-compliance of other participants. :(


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