To report her for tax evasion?

[hooveringhamabeads]

I know of someone who is making around £1k a week, but hardly declares any of her income (she doesn't pay any tax at all so declaring less that £10k of it). She also claims tax credits.

I don't particularly like this person and am tempted to report her. Problem is, pretty much all the money she receives is in cash, so is there any way that the HMRC would actually be able to prove or disprove what she's earning?

Quite a few years ago, I had an acquaintance who worked in a 'normal' job 9-5, earning a distinctly average wage. They then had a second job, evenings and weekends, 'self-employed'. They were fairly open about the fact that it was all cash in hand, not only that, but they also didn't have any of the insurances that they should have had in order to run this particular 'business'. A few of us were uncomfortable with it all, but none of us wanted to be 'mean' or 'sneaky'. The person in question justified it by saying they already paid tax on their regular job, (they were earning barely £15k a year), so why should they pay more tax on the second income stream?
So no one said anything. Ten years on, this person, (with the help of a dodgy accountant type associate), packed up and left the country, accompanied only by the £300k that they'd manage to accumulate during their decade of tax evasion.
Yes, I do wish now that I'd had the balls to report them.

"Really Adish?"

Yes. Really.

"It wouldn't bother me at all."

The thing is, if I knew her well enough to know the ins and outs of every penny she made (which OP seems to do) then chances are I'd know her children pretty well, too.

"It's her problem."

The crime is her's, but the custodial sentence would probably affect the children more than it would affect the defrauder.

So, yes, that thought would bother me hugely and could well be enough (experience has taught me) to prevent me reporting (although not so much that I might not confront in another way).

She won't get a custodial sentence.

Most of these cases won't even go to court, HMRC will just ask for them to pay the taxes they owe plus interest plus penalties. If they can't pay they get taken to court. And some will then go bankrupt.

If everybody paid the tax they are obliged to, the less our taxes would go up and more money would be available for our public and health services.
Tax avoidance is not a victimless crime - we all end up paying more because of it - just they same way false insurance claims and shoplifting puts all our costs up.

I've always wondered how far this "snitching" goes. Apparently (on MN) it's always snitching to report tax evasion or benefit fraud, but I wonder how at what point reporting illegal activity becomes acceptable, and how you justify that line. Does it depend on the scale of the crime? The severity of it? Is small time thievery fine but large scale tax evasion not?

Is it snitching if you report a vandal? A thief? Suspected child abuse? Domestic violence? Rape? Murder? If you report someone you suspect is hoarding weapons or the ingredients for explosives (one attack was busted because someone reported someone else who was buying unusual amounts of fertiliser) or who has been displaying extremist tendencies, is that "snitching"? Or is that ok?

Snitching is a word best left to the playground.

Whatever she is doing is none of your business. Watch out as it may bite you back in the ass later on in life

I guess cosmetic procedures such as Botox, lip fillers etc. The lady who does a relative of mine is a registered nurse and went on a days training course and during one visit with my relative walks away with about £600 for a couple hours work. Cash.

"She won't get a custodial sentence."

Maybe not. Maybe

If I remember rightly, a couple of years back a change in HMRC policy meant that instead of targeting (just) the big offenders, they were aiming for an across - the - board target of custodial sentences. Culpable tax avoidance of quite low monetary sums started to attract sentences of up to 3 years.

So if this person has been doing this for a few years (don't think OP said how long), alongside benefit fraud, she might well get a custodial sentence.

Just report her, if she is clean she will be none the wiser and you can move on and if she's not then she just needs to find the tax and pay it back. If she can't then really that's her look out.
She should like she has more resources than the average benefit receiver and this is how we pay for benefits through taxes.
Moaning about big corporations not paying tax is not the same argument. They should be paying but so should she.
Every one saying meh, your council tax and general taxes could be reduced and benefits paid.

So Adish are you saying that those who have given birth should not be held accountable for their illegal activities?

Actually maybe you're not, but as someone that pays nearly half my salary to pay for her tax credits, forgive me if I don't give a fuck about her domestic arrangements

"are you saying that those who have given birth should not be held accountable for their illegal activities"

Absolutely not! No, not saying that.

In OP's position (well the little we know of OP's position and the circumstances surrounding) I would tell the woman I knew; tell her it had to be reported; and suggest that it might be better if she confessed her 'error' herself instead, and paid back the money via her her tax code.

That all sounds a bit simple, but I have encountered a real life example , where a person discovered a colleague defrauding 'someone'. She confronted her colleague, told them she could prove it, but would first give them the opportunity to come clean by themselves. Long story short, they did! Of course there were still repercussions, but not one's that affected their entire family as much as a criminal charge would have done.

That all sounds a bit cryptic ... sorry ... but the people concerned would definitely recognise themselves if they read the details on MN.

I don't understand why having children means people wouldn't report. If she isn't evading tax then HMRC won't do anything, but if she is evading tax then she is stealing from the rest of us. If I realised that having children means don't need to pay my taxes (you know, to pay for their schooling and healthcare and stuff) I wouldn't bother!

I would report. If she isn't paying tax she is in the wrong and breaking the law, if she is paying tax nothing will happen and no harm done.

My mum used to work for hmrc.... They love a tip-off.

Tax evasion is a crime, it is stealing from the vulnerable and puts up taxes for the rest of us. If she's doing nothing wrong then there'll be nothing to find.... Though is there a chance she'll know it came from you? How could that play out if she did?

The OP doesn't have to be certain, that's the job of the HMRC. I can imagine lots of people on this thread are like me, been paying a huge chunk of taxes for many years, why should some people get out of this? Where do we draw the line in not reporting parents for their crimes? Do we report drug dealers who are parents? People who steal from shops? Drink driving? Murder? What is acceptable to report parents for and what is not?

Maybe the people who are saying don't report are possible tax evaders themselves...

I don't really get the argument that small scale tax evasion is okay because the tax system, like insurance, relies on everyone paying in small amounts to cover big costs. For example, one person stealing £1000 seems like a big amount - much more serious than 1,000 people stealing £10. But the overall effect on the person being robbed is much greater by the larger number of people stealing smaller amounts -£9,000 more!

It's the same with the tax system. But this person is not only failing to pay in £10 of what they owe, they're also asking for £30 back from the system, further burdening all those who are honestly paying in. The other issue, apart from unfairly undercutting honest businesses, is it normalises tax fraud. If you know someone who is swindling the system people start saying, why should I pay my taxes, if that person isn't? That just makes me a fool. This is what caused a lot of Greece's problems, as far as I understand it. Tax evasion became morally acceptable and the system eventually collapsed.

I don't want this woman to go to jail. But I do want to her to pay back what she owes, and also receive a fine to discourage her and others who think it's ok.

To me the tax evasion bothers me less than the claiming tax credits on top of it. It's one thing to wrongfully not pay into the system but it's a lot worse to do that plus also wrongfully take from the system

But both are wrongfully stealing from the system - I don't see how they are different from each other or stealing in any other form.
If the OP is correct in facts then we don't have a struggling parent stealing a can of beans to feed children - its simple and blatant theft, in two different forms, of large amounts of money.

And as others have pointed out upthread - if she isn't paying taxes on her business then another legitimate business loses out as they cannot compete with the 'do it for cash' brigade.

Presumably all the people thinking its nobody else's business would also turn a blind eye to someone stealing directly from their homes or bank accounts? And if not why not?

But this woman isn't just evading paying the tax she should, she's also claiming tax credits she wouldn't be entitled too - not just reducing the money available by not paying the right amount in, but actively taking money out she shouldn't have.

Report.

I'd report her and let them investigate. If she is declaring then she'll have nothing to worry about. Can't stand people who do this while the rest of us contribute towards the NHS etc.

I know someone who got caught, he has kids. HMRC didn't jail him, they sat down and made out a payment plan, let him keep his business so that he could pay EVERY penny back. It'll take him 20 years. His family will have enough to live on, not flashy by any means, until he's paid back the 20 years he dodged paying full tax.

I know someone in the exact same circumstances (except she doesn't claim anything). It's quite easily done. She boards dogs and walks dogs. Cash in hand. Pays everything in cash.

The nation as a whole doesn't like paying tax - hence the outcry over the idea that homes should fund care after death and the failure of the lib dems to get anyway with a pledge to raise taxes.

The nation also blubbers about the state of the NHS, roads, rail etc etc . can't have it both ways...

If you are are sure,report . I assume all those yelling the playground ' don't snitch' would also not report being burgled, having their bank account raided and so on.

Hmm ... Op has a forensic knowledge of this fraudster's income and expenditure and her tax arrangements but can't or won't say how she knows this information or why the fraudster disclosed the info?

Hmm ...

And she somehow manages to get everyone she works for to pay her cash, to a level that gives a profit (not income) double the national average?

Pull the other one op it has got bells on. I suspect, bragging or a misunderstanding or an attempt to get everyone frothing