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The only real difference is that the richer people can afford to pay accountants to find these loopholes in the system to reduce the amount of tax to the bare minimum that they have to pay – pretty certain a fair amount of people if they could afford it, would do the same.
My question is, if tax avoidance is such a dodgy practice then why aren’t the HMRC doing anything (or perhaps I should say more) about it to close said loopholes? Maybe they should employ some of the same accountants that find these loopholes so they can close more of them.
HMRC only has finite resources. And trying to shut down loopholes is like playing whack a mole. As soon as one is hit, another pops up.
And I am sorry to say it but there is the issue of the quality of HMRC’s staff. Most of the grizzled old inspectors of taxes who knew what they were doing are retired now and have not really been replaced.
Alternate View, its good hes been caught, did not a Mr Piggot spend time at her Majesty’s pleasure before for tax issues. Lock Him Up!!
“Maybe they should employ some of the same accountants that find these loopholes so they can close more of them.”
It tends to be the other way around. HMRC (and its legacy departments) invest money training up people in tax work, only for a lot of them to jump ship and join the big accountancy firms where they can earn far higher wages and use their knowledge against HMRC. Gamekeepers turned poachers.
Piggot was different as he was actively hiding his money to avoid paying any tax at all.
Didn’t Piggott pay a tax fine to HRMC from an account they didn’t know existed …
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
HMRC have published a list of all these schemes and their promoters and suppliers. There are hundreds of them.
So although I have some sympathy for Dettori in buying into this as thinking it was sound financial advice, now he has been caught he should live with the consequences and pay any tax and nics owed.
I’m sure there are others with much more financial nous than Dettori who have fallen for these schemes.
HDLG – I think that is what actually got him caught or at least caused the HMRC to go on a deep dive investigation.
As an accountant I can assure readers that these schemes are very complex. Tax accountants spend hours pouring through legislation to find what they think are loopholes. They then persuade the unaware to part with their cash to partake in their scheme. Usually, of course, the legislation is watertight. Of course HMRC can only investigate when it has happened. There is no way HMRC can guess in advance what these tax accountants are up to
As an investor, I have studied genuine tax incentives to reduce tax. I have discovered that in the vast majority of these cases, the investment will lose more money than the tax saved.
Dettori isn’t covering himself in glory.
Lester did his time unlike ken dodd who did exactly the same thing. Dodd was friendly with a certain female prime minister and hey presto no jail time. The queen was said to be livid at both decisions as she was very fond of lester. Lester obviously not connected to the right people and wasnt as clever as those who pay a pittance of tax on huge earnings.
Lester was a miser , he put plenty noses out of joint as a jockey with his ” envelopes ” jobs
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
If they are lucky they’ll get a few pence from the pound owed , Chapman stated on Unbridled he’d been away on Holiday last week…. He had a good tan so it wasn’t Skegness … Owes hundreds of thousands but still able to live a flash lifestyle …
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
“Dodd was friendly with a certain female prime minister and hey presto no jail time.”
He also had the services of perhaps the best ever defence barrister in the history of English Law. Someone who even got Jeremy Thorpe acquitted when he was obviously guilty.
And a Liverpool jury was very unlikely to find Doddy guilty, especially about putting one over the taxman.
Ken Dodd in Court, possibly/probably apocryphal:
‘I told the Inland Revenue I didn’t owe them a penny because I lived near the seaside’
Dodd: ‘Part of my troubles were due to the death of my accountant’
QC: ‘Did that really matter?’
Dodd: ‘Well, it mattered to him’
And to paraphrase a familiar joke of his:
If you can play the Glasgow Empire on a Saturday night after both Celtic and Rangers have lost, you can play a court of law
I believe there’s now a Ken Dodd Museum in Liverpool. Have you been Corker?
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