黑洞社区

The government has announced a crackdown on what it calls 鈥渢ax cheats鈥� in London鈥檚 construction industry as part of the government鈥檚 拢917m plan to reduce tax evasion.

HM Revenue and Customs said it was launching a number of 鈥渢askforces鈥� designed to tackle people evading tax, including a specific team targeting builders in the capital, which it expected to bring in 拢3m in unpaid tax.

HMRC said specialist teams visit traders in high-risk sectors to examine their records and carry out other investigations. The move is part of a wider crackdown on tax evasion which the government says will bring in 拢7bn a year by 2014/15.

David Gauke, exchequer secretary to the Treasury, said:鈥淲e are determined to support hardworking people who want to get on, but the people being targeted by these taskforces have no intention of playing by the rules. This Government has made it clear that we will not tolerate tax evasion and we have provided HMRC with the resources to crack down on those who break the rules.鈥�

The crackdown comes as Labour鈥檚 shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves announced that a future Labour government would act immediately to tackle so-called 鈥渂ogus self employment鈥� on construction sites.

Reeves said that if elected Labour would introduce rules to ensure that construction workers were automatically treated as employed directly by contractors if there were 鈥渙bvious signs鈥� that they were directly employed.

Reeves said bogus self employment, where individual workers set up as private companies in order to avoid income tax, affected 300,000 construction workers and cost the Treasury 拢350m a year.

Reeves said: 鈥淲e cannot afford to leave loopholes in the tax system that allow vital revenue to be lost. It is unfair on the majority who do the right thing play and by the rules if some are able to avoid paying their fair share of tax.

鈥淲e will of course consult further and work closely with the construction industry to design the criteria so that the right level of flexibility is maintained, that those who are genuinely self-employed are not hit, and that measures do not impact negatively on a sector that has been hit hard by the slump in infrastructure and housing investment we have seen under this government.