Taxman targets Scotland in latest clampdown

Scottish fast food and scrap metal businesses are being targeted in a new crackdown by the taxman.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has launched two taskforces – specialist teams that undertake intensive bursts of investigation into high-risk sectors and locations across the UK.

One will target fast food outlets that deliberately falsify their records and hide their true sales levels to avoid paying the correct taxes, while the other will investigate scrap metal dealers suspected of suppressing their income or inflating expenditure to avoid paying up.

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Both teams will also check businesses are paying the national minimum wage.

Mike Wells, director of risk and intelligence at HMRC, said “honest business” had nothing to fear, but those caught dodging tax would face a heavy fine and possible prosecution.

He said: “These taskforces will come down hard on fast-food outlets and scrap metal dealers that have deliberately chosen to break the rules and evade the taxes they should be paying.”

Taskforces are being set up as a result of £900 million of UK government measures to tackle tax evasion, avoidance and fraud. The policy, announced in the spending review, aims to raise an additional £7 billion a year by 2014-15.

Liam McKenna, a partner at Glasgow accountants Martin Aitken & Co, said Scotland was “a happy hunting ground” for HMRC and was being targeted disproportionately. “Inspection visits, or raids as some would describe them, have been made without prior warning,” he said. He advised traders in affected sectors to prepare themselves by speaking to tax advisers.

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