to think tax cheats should get long prison sentences

[AgaPanthers]

They make lots of noise about benefits cheats. Some have been locked up, e.g., four years for this lady who stole £353,000:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-22652179

So on the same basis, wouldn't a 10 year stretch for Chris Moyles for his absurd £1 million 'car dealing' ruse be appropriate?

www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/21/chris-moyles-used-car-dealer-tax-avoidance

Why can't we lock these shits up?

Forget this nonsense about going to tax court with expensive lawyers and then, maybe, just maybe, having to pay the tax in the end, just throw these fuckers in prison. Would focus their minds quite nicely I think.

Cunts.

Did he break the law, or just use a loop hole?

Surely it would be better to concentrate on closing the loopholes?

Prison sentences and stiff penalties. Also they should have their myWaitrose cards taken and be barred from public office.

Well you could always bill them for their imprisonment.

I can't say I'm convinced that it's right to lock anyone up for non-voilent crime or crimes that don't carry potential to cause physical harm.

As far as cash crimes are concerned, I think judges should be hitting criminals in the pocket. If said criminal is particularly rich, some measure should be taken to make them struggle financially.

I don't have a fully formed plan for this in my head by the way. I just believe we may do more harm than good when we lock benefits and tax cheats up with rapists and murderers.

As far as I'm aware the benefit cheating is illegal but the tax thing isn't. So no, not prison sentences for both. I'm sure someone in the know will be along soon.

to give them lengthy trials, double their bill. simple. :)

sorry, I'm using a different laptop. To give them lengthy trials costs so much money..

I'll support anything that chucks Chris Moyles in the clink. Oh but he irritates me.

Wally, these tax advisors come up with a ludicrous scheme and claim that it uses a valid loophole. In order to get people to pay their taxes, HMRC have to take them to a tax court and prove it doesn't.

In this case the tax advisors in question have been found wanting in three such cases.

Obviously there are things that are loopholes, e.g., it is perfectly legal for a company to own a house, a warehouse, or whatever, and by selling the company, rather than the house, you could avoid paying stamp duty.

That's a loophole, and the government have introduced new levies to clamp down.

In this case Chris Moyles claimed to be selling used cars. This was just total bollocks, and not what you could describe as a loophole.

Not criminal at present, so there doesn't seem to be any reason why the tax advisors wouldn't set up another such scheme and go through this again.

Obviously everyone now thinks Chris Moyles is a cunt, but a lot of the people in these schemes aren't media names, and don't give a shit, so the risk is very low.

I can't understand how these celebrities have tax accountants and advisers and end up with no money to pay the bills.

Surely as a safety net you'd try and put some of it into a bloody bank. Especially if it was a regular income from the BBC.

Obviously I'm not saying that they could lock him up under current criminal law. There is no suggestion that posing as a car dealer to avoid a million pounds in tax is criminal.

But it should be.

No...Chris Moyles has always been one. Nowt to do with selling cars.

Wally, there is no suggestion that Chris Moyles doesn't have the £1m to pay his tax bill. There's nothing about him going bankrupt.

It appears to be a simple case of not wanting to pay.

A lot of expats have been doing this kind of thing for years though. Buying cars to order VAT free, keeping the mileage low and then selling them back to UK dealerships after a certain time.

They used to encourage army families posted overseas to do it too. People were making £10-13k a car.

Wally, I don't think you can compare buying a single car to earn the 20% VAT, with claiming £1m of trading losses through selling cars.

Tax-free cars is a common expat perk, and one actual physical car (which carries risk of losing value), for one expat, is not egregious.

Carr wasn't doing that, it was a claimed paper loss of £1m, that had nothing to do with any real buying and selling of cars, and was purely done to dodge tax on his income earned as a professional cunt.

Not Carr, Moyles. Getting my cunts confused.

A couple of thoughts, firstly, I think anyone found guilty of tax evasion should be assigned a period of much higher level oversight of their tax affairs. The fear of potential forensic examination of your affairs could be a cost effective deterrent, custodial sentences cost us, the taxpayer, money.

Secondly, surely it makes more economic sense to focus efforts on the greatest return, i.e. on people who avoid the greatest amount. With a company or person allegedly avoiding £100k plus you could potentially spend significant sums on investigation and still be quids in on average.

I didn't mean Chris Moyles in particular. But let's see if he now does have the money to pay his tax, and possible fines. He's not exactly man of the moment anymore....

And that sheepish statement is ridiculous, hiding behind the stupidity cloak of his tax advisor.

Ignorance isn't an excuse.

However, I don't think it rubs out the other woman's wrong doing. She took a payment that was allocated to a fund that no doubt could have given benefit to a genuine claimant directly and deserves punishment for that.

The other woman is definitely a crook, no doubt.

Moyles has form for this, he was in a different scheme in 2012 called 'Rushmore'.

I scanned quickly through the HMRC document (bearing in mind it's 3.20am for me) as I didn't really understand the scheme.

Very blatant, I'm amazed they thought it would pass unseen for that amount of a tax loss.

They can appeal the decision next.