by David Jones | Nov 16, 2023 | Tax Investigations, VAT
Earlier this year, an intrepid officer from HMRC’s VAT hit squad, visited a small cake and sandwich shop and purely on a couple of hours observation, believed that the shop owners were deliberately minimising their Standard Rate (SR) sales. After a subsequent visit he...
by David Jones | Oct 12, 2023 | Business Start-up, Business Tax, Tax Investigations, VAT
Last week, VAT specialists VATCalc revealed that the number of UK businesses registering for VAT dropped by over 40,000, the first drop in registrations since 2011. This was surprising, as most experts in the field expected the number to rise, especially as the VAT...
by David Jones | Jul 20, 2023 | Business Tax, Payroll Services, Personal Tax Planning, Self Assessment, Tax Investigations
The use of mini-umbrella companies (MUC) to employ contractors or temporary workers has been a well-used scheme over the years and has resulted in the individuals concerned, avoiding considerable amounts of Income Tax and NIC. This is a subject that I’ve covered in...
by David Jones | Jan 12, 2023 | Business Tax, Tax Investigations, VAT
Today I’m going to tell you the tale of a taxpayer, whose claim of not actively trading was blown out of the water by Google’s watchful eye, leaving him personally liable for VAT of £65,801. Zakir Hashmi was the sole director and only shareholder of Apollinaire Ltd,...
by David Jones | May 19, 2022 | Business Regulation, Business Start-up, Business Tax, Opinion, Payroll Services, Tax Investigations
Before I go into the detail of this case, I think it helpful if I explain exactly what long-firm fraud is. Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud, defines long-firm fraud as when dishonest individuals set up what’s an apparently legitimate...