Bitter ex-partners and disgruntled neighbours among thousands paid out by HMRC for tipping them off on tax dodgers
Hundreds of people tip-off the authorities on suspected tax dodging a day
HMRC pay up to £1,000 for useful information that leads to a ‘big win’
The taxman has paid out more than £400,000 in a year to informants
Nearly 100,000 people phoned the tax dodging hotline in the last year
By OLLIE GILLMAN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 17:02 GMT, 26 October 2014 | UPDATED: 22:30 GMT, 26 October 2014
Ex-partners, work colleagues and neighbours are among hundreds of people tipping off the authorities about suspected tax dodgers every day.
The number of informants telling the taxman about suspected dodgy practices has risen by thousands in two years, with an average of 250 people calling a HM Revenue & Customs hotline every day.
Informants who tip-off HMRC can receive payouts of up to £1,000 if their information leads to a ‘big win’ over a wealthy individual.
According to figures obtained by the Sunday Telegraph, a record £400,000 was paid out to people who phoned the taxman’s hotline as part of a rewards scheme.
Bitter ex-wives and husbands and disgruntled colleagues made up the majority of people phoning up to report tax evasion.
Rewards of anywhere between £50 and £1,000 are given to informants whose phone call leads to HMRC recouping money from wealthy people.
More than 97,000 people called the hotline last year, but only a small number of those were paid out, according to figures revealed under freedom of information laws.
The amount paid out – £402,160 – was 30 per cent higher than three years ago.
Experts said this showed HMRC had taken to ‘desperate measures’ to claw back the £34billion in tax which has gone uncollected.
Adam Craggs, a tax partner at law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, said: ‘The pressure on HMRC from the Exchequer means that it is turning to all available means in order to meet targets.
‘It does not widely publicise the fact that it makes payments to informants partly because this is a controversial policy and also because it does not want to make payments unless it really has to.
‘If too many people know that they can get paid by HMRC for providing information they may be less willing to provide information free.’
The gap between tax owed and tax actually paid has grown by £1billion this year, with the Exchequer piling yet more pressure on the taxman.
A spokesman for HMRC said making payments to informants was ‘appropriate in certain occasions to tackle those who try to cheat the system’.
He added: ‘The payment of rewards is at the discretion of HMRC. The awards are based on what is achieved as a direct result of the information provided and a range of factors determine the amount.
‘The factors include the tax recovered, the estimate of the loss of revenue prevented and other measurable benefits such as the time saved in working compliance cases.’
