The main purpose of taxation is to provide the government with the funds needed to deliver public services, reduce poverty in society, and to invest in country development and security systems, (IMF, OECD, World Bank, 2011). Although the vast majority of the society pays their tax liability, there are number of businesses and individuals who avoid it. This causes the ‘tax gap’, the difference between the expected revenues and the amounts actually collected by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), ( HM Revenue & Customs and HM Treasury, 2014).
The several actions have been taken by the authorities to close the tax gap. Main strategy of HMRS is to prevent tax avoidance and tax evasion through early detection of potential deceivers, and encouraging
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This will ensure better control allowing HMRC on establishing whether multinational firms fully declare earnings made in the UK, and if they are appropriately taxed on them. ( HM Revenue & Customs and HM Treasury, 2014). Most recently, in March 2014, Mr Osborne also announced “pay now, argue later” approach to be used towards more than 30,000 the richest tax avoiders. The intention of new approach is to discourage system abuse by “ensuring that avoiders are unable to benefit financially during the often protracted dispute process by sitting on money that should be in the taxman's coffers”, (Bowers, 2014).
Over recent times, tax avoidance and evasion topic has come under spotlight of the media, as being key factor contributing to the creation of the tax gap. The media implies that anyone who does not pay the potential maximum is failing to fulfil their social duty.
There are many cases where criticism is justified. For instance, Starbucks, the biggest coffee chain in Britain, had only paid £8.6m in corporation tax, insisting the business made loss for 14 years out of 15 years of trading in the UK. The company CEO, Troy Alstead, asked by Margaret Hodge, MP’s on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, why would they keep operating in the UK, he replied that they are committed to this market place and customers,
Tax avoidance has become a massive topic of discussion over the past few years, given the current global economic conditions and the cuts to the public sector by the government as a result. This led to increased anger from the public who perceive avoidance by many of the country’s wealthiest people in a time of austerity as greed. Perhaps the most notable demonstration of this anger can be seen in the actions of the group UK Uncut, who for the past year have been organising protests at shops owned by retail tycoon Philip Green who, as the poster boy for tax avoidance, paid a £1.2 billion dividend to his Monaco-resident wife.
HMRC ensure the correct tax is paid at the right time, whether this relates to payment of taxes received by the department or entitlement to benefits paid.
Managing assessment safe houses and different strategies utilized by rich people and expansive organizations to evade duty is significant; the measure of cash lost by creating nations to expense safe houses surpasses all universal advancement aid. This increments worldwide imbalance as well as implies that a higher extent of open consumption must be financed by citizens in lower pay bunches. In numerous nations tax assessment, has stopped to be fundamentally
Ever since the ratification of the 16th amendment to the United States Constitution, Americans have faced the burden of federal income taxes. Income taxes were first proposed as a better way of gathering revenue, as well as an effective measure to manipulate economic spending. However, the current tax code bears very little resemblance to the relatively simple codes that were originally written into law. Today’s tax laws have grown astonishingly complex and unequally distributes the burden of tax liabilities. Our country should confront the issues derived from the increasing complexity of the tax laws and equally distribute the obligations to each taxpayer.
A sustainable budget with crackdowns on tax avoidance and loopholes, address the issue of tax avoidance that are cause by legal
Taxation surrounds us in the world. Individuals fear tax, and a majority of the items we use and need are taxed. Even on topics such as Celebrities and the Olympics, taxation manages to find its way to still come up.
In order for these governments to function there was a need for revenue to meet the expenses incurred by these governments. This need for revenue was met by levying taxes on individuals and businesses. It has always been a question to the population being taxed as to whether or not the government was doing a good job in assessing and managing the money it collected from taxes.
The recent introduction of the hybrid entities has shielded the foreign firms from paying their appropriate taxes through the shielding of the taxable income and through using the foreign tax amounts on the other incomes (Messina, 2015). In this regard, only minimal taxes are remitted from the revenue generated by the local firms. Besides, people tend to evade tax charged on dividends and interests by not giving honest reports pertaining to the revenue generated abroad. Furthermore, individuals evade the taxes through transferring their funds to foreign accounts. Fortunately, the IRS can address the issue of tax evasion by changing the existing tax laws to remove the deductions and other restrictions, for instance, the foreign tax credits. Besides, it is vital to impose restrictions to curb tax evasion at a personal level through the desired policies of better information reporting and tougher penalties for the
The times when taxes were first imposed on American Citizens, from that day people have been trying to find different ways to escape from taxes. While some taxpayers continue to find legal ways to avoid taxes on the other hand some choose to evade taxes, or not to pay at all.
Income tax is considered to be one of the greatest ways that a country amasses wealth through known means from the public in order to use the funds for the benefit and welfare of the community. Since a very long time, there have been many discussions and debates on the way the finds collected for income tax have been spend. There are many who think that there is a lot of mismanagement and feel that the amount of the actual money spent on welfare of the community is far less that what gets collected by the country.
Andreoni, J., Erard, B., & Feinstein, J. (1998). Tax compliance. Journal of economic literature, 36(2), 818-860.
On the other hand, people who consider tax avoidance a right of an individual or a company consider aggressive anti tax avoidance attitude of government to be socialist in nature instead of democratic. They argue that it is the right of any person to keep the maximum amount of money that he or she earned and pay least amount of tax required. They think that questioning the morality of a tax avoider is not appropriate because he has more right to that money than the government and instead of questioning the morality, government should lower tax rates, simplify tax process and legislate accordingly (Ryan Bourne, 2012).
The net tax gap is this amount less tax paid late or collected by the IRS through enforcement mechanisms. Both the gross and net tax gaps can be subdivided into the three main components as the return non-filing, the income under-reporting, and the under payment gap. The under reporting gap is in turn made up of three rudiments- under reported income, over stated rebates/ reductions and net arithmetical mistakes in income tax return. Income tax law must accommodate fair administrative procedures, tax decisions and as well as appeal options but it all depends on substantial readiness of tax compliance on taxpayers. Efficient tax machinery involves actions to engage tax payers to comply willingly, without the need for enquiries,
Each individual pays income taxes when they receive enough wages, and they also pay sales taxes when they purchase for goods. There are diverse kinds of taxes which are should be paid by both sellers and buyers. Many politicians of a country greatly consider the fairness of paying taxes to receive high attention (206). The fairness of taxing based on the ideal tax system which is fair, equivalent and clear to all taxpayers. There are two conflicting principles of fairness of taxes; one is the benefits principle and another is the ability-to-pay principle.
The individual income tax is complicated, and it violates transparency standards through created loopholes (or tax preferences) which allow some to pay less than their fair share of taxes (Mikesell, 2011). In 2005, more than 70 percent of individuals filing taxes had tax preparers complete their returns because of confusing rules and regulations that could penalize taxpayers for qualifying for certain legal tax preferences (Mikesell, 2011). This transparency problem exists because citizens are really unaware of how to determine their tax liability except at the end of the year. Income taxes are collected annually through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and there are constant complaints about the IRS not willing to assist taxpayers