{"id":2144,"date":"2024-10-14T14:49:36","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T14:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/?p=2144"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:51:27","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T14:51:27","slug":"the-third-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/the-third-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Third Answer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tony Monger travels through time to get to the roots of the tax authority\u2019s current ills<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my 47-year career in taxes \u2013 25 years in HMRC and 22 years in private practice \u2013 I have been asked many times if I knew how to evade taxation. I have always said that I had two answers and only two answers. But I have recently come up with a third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But before I tell you my three answers I must draw your attention to the picture in this article. For those who don\u2019t know, this is the remains of what once used to be Ty Glas Building in Llanishen in Cardiff, which is currently in the final stages of being demolished. Built in 1973, this is perhaps better known as the then Inland Revenue\u2019s (later HMRC\u2019s) Public Departments \u2013 or PDs as they were better known. So called because they dealt with the taxation of the many Departments of the Civil Service that served the public. They dealt with the taxation of employees of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Home Office, the Welsh Office, esoteric and little known organisations such as the Science Research Council and the Social Science Research Council, judges, court officials, MI5 and MI6: you name it, they taxed it. Why, they even had a department that dealt with the taxation of the employees of the Inland Revenue itself (behind locked doors that only a very select few and trusted staff might enter). And there was also an ultra secret section that taxed spies \u2013 you know, the likes of James Bond whose files (or so legend had it) had no names or addresses, merely payroll numbers\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, what very few people know is that PD was never designed or intended to be Public Departments. What it was supposed to be was Centre 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What, you have never heard of Centre 3? Then perhaps instead you might have heard of Centre 1 in East Kilbride, which dealt with the taxation of all employees in Scotland?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, once upon a time, in the 1960s, the Government of the day decided that computerisation was the way to go. They had seen Civil Service numbers rising since the end of World War Two and decided that computerisation and centralisation would reduce staff numbers. As a result, they decided on building four enormous computer centres. Centre 1, in Scotland, would deal with the taxation of all employees under PAYE in Scotland. Centre 2, in Bootle, would deal with all of England\u2019s employees; Centre 3, in Llanishen in Cardiff, would deal with all of Wales; and Centre 4, in Belfast, would deal with all of Northern Ireland. Centre 1 was first to be completed and went on line. Centres 2 and 3 were nearing completion. And then there was a General Election and a change of government, and the incoming government (a Labour\/Liberal coalition) decided that they could no longer afford all that computerisation (or the redundancies that were planned to go with it) and scrapped the whole plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New uses were found for Bootle and Llanishen, and Ty Glas became home to Public Departments which, at its peak housed something approaching 2,000 Civil Servants. But Centre 1 was already up and running and so they kept it, in splendid and lonely isolation. They should have changed the name to \u2018Centre 1 And Only\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I joined the Inland Revenue in June 1974 and was posted to Public Dept Two on the 16th floor in Llanishen. I was a Direct Entrant Tax Officer (Higher Grade) \u2013 the equivalent of an Executive Officer \u2013 and underwent a two-year training course during which I learnt on the job. Unfortunately, what this meant was that I often got given the jobs which no one wanted to do, on the basis that it would be \u2018good experience\u2019 for me. Among these were the \u2018Sample Checks\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those days, the Civil Service was very keen on checking the standard of its own work, so various officers were required on a regular basis to undertake very strict quality checks of particular tasks. It might be Unemployment Repayments, or Capital Gains Tax assessments, or Collection of PAYE underpayments. In every case there was a strict written procedure that the sampling officer must undertake to select his sample, and of the checks he must then undertake, recording the results religiously. I recall undertaking one check which came out with an error rate of over 10%. My superior, the Section Inspector, was horrified. \u201cMy God!\u201d He exclaimed, \u201cThat\u2019s almost as bad as Centre 1!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His response intrigued me and stuck with me. In the subsequent years I learnt that Centre 1 was notorious for its high error rates (I rush to add here that my evidence is entirely anecdotal in case I malign any former Centre 1 employees). However, there was a reason for these errors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because they were computerised, Centre 1 staff were expected to deal with far greater numbers of taxpayers than the staff in other Inland Revenue offices. The other factor was the nature of the allocation of the work. In every other office of the Inland Revenue, staff would be allocated taxpayers by employer \u2013 so, for example, in a local office you might have an allocation of 4,000 taxpayers, of whom 2,800 were employed by the local steel works, and the remaining 1,200 by various local shops and factories. The Revenue Officer dealing with these employers would get to know any peculiarities of the employment \u2013 whether there was much travelling and expense allowances, whether there were relocation costs, whether a particular class of employee got a boot allowance (for steel toe-capped boots) or some such. And the payroll staff in those local employers got to know their designated tax officer and could ring them up with queries \u2013 such as what to do when a new employee had lost the P45 from a previous employer, or what tax code to operate when someone who had left was entitled to back pay. But in Centre 1 the allocations were not based on employer but on the employee\u2019s National Insurance number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the first allocation of employees in Centre 1 might be, say from NINO AA 00 00 01 A to AB 23 07 64 A, and the second might run from NINO AB 23 07 65 A and so on. What this meant for the poor tax officers in Centre 1 was that their first taxpayer might be a docker and the next a doctor, the next a plumber, the next a company director. There was no chance whatsoever for the tax officer to gain any kind of local knowledge of the employer, or the peculiarities of any particular employment because they were far removed from the actual locations of all of these different employers. Hence the error rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaving Centre 1 aside for a moment, I worked hard to escape from Llanishen by seeking promotion to the Inspector grade and, after a mere seven years (!) was selected to go on a course of Technical Training to become an Investigator. The most exciting part of this was being sent to a local office in one of the nearby towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contrast with Public Departments could not have been greater. For a start, in my seven years in Public Departments I had only met two taxpayers face to face. Oh yes, I had spoken to thousands on the phone and corresponded with many times more than that by letter, but only two had ever made the trip to Llanishen to actually see me. In the local office, there was a daily flood of taxpayers. Heck, sometimes you had to almost shoulder your way through them to get to the door marked \u2018Staff only\u2019. The office staff knew many taxpayers by name, would recognise them as they came through the door, would greet some as old friends \u2013 and others as regular sparring partners. The other big difference between PD and the local offices was that, in PD, I had dealt only with employees. In the local offices, I would get to meet the self employed \u2013 and their accountants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very nature of a local office was that, because staff lived and worked in the area, they developed an extensive local knowledge. The benefits of this cannot be overstated, both for the Revenue staff and for taxpayers. Even after all these years, the Official Secrets Act prevents me from saying too much but I can recall one instance where an investigation into a family-run business revealed inexplicable levels of savings and assets that could not have been acquired from the known sources of income. I was struggling to identify what I thought must be an undisclosed source when I received a message from a colleague who happened to have been in school with a local Police Inspector. It emerged that the family were the prime suspects in a series of security van thefts and my file was subsequently taken away to be used in a criminal prosecution. I must admit that I had some sleepless nights thereafter when I recalled some of the possibly abusive remarks I had made to a father and son who, allegedly, made regular use of sawn-off shotguns!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, there was an occasion when one of my colleagues was considering investigating a local lady who was displaying a level of wealth that was far in excess of her declared income. When a member of staff explained that it was well known that the lady in question was the \u2018companion\u2019 of a very wealthy and prominent businessman who was \u2013 how shall I phrase it? \u2013 supporting her standard of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local knowledge meant awareness of what businesses were doing well and which were doing badly, of who was expanding and who was closing down. When a new shop opened, the tax office would be waiting for notification of the start up \u2013 and might go and knock on the door if it didn\u2019t arrive. When a business closed \u2013 or a businessman or woman died \u2013 they would be able to make a note to prevent the issue of unnecessary and potentially distressing assessments for subsequent periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an Inspector (which is what I subsequently became), you also learnt which accountants you could trust and which ones might play a little fast and loose. You also learnt which ones were good and competent and which ones were close to hopeless. I am more than happy to record that the bad and crooked were very few and far between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relationship with the good and capable accountants was what might be called symbiotic \u2013 It was mutually beneficial. I can recall seeing a Case 1 computation that contained an obvious arithmetical error and ringing the accountant to discuss it. In the course of a one-minute telephone call we agreed the correction to the figures and the revised profits were agreed with no further ado. On another occasion, I can recall an accountant ringing me to ask for an adjournment of a Commissioner\u2019s Hearing (the predecessor of the current Tribunal) due to a family illness and me immediately agreeing a three-month adjournment, with the promise of a further adjournment if needed, simply because I knew the calibre of the accountant and his client and recognised that he would not have made such a request if it were not necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was something of an idyllic situation but the nature of idylls is that they come to an end. And thus it was with the local offices, which began to close down in the 1980s. I don\u2019t have the precise numbers but I believe at one time there were over 600 local tax offices, one in every town of any substance. Within five years, this had reduced to around 200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my case, they closed the five local Cardiff offices which had been situated in the centre of town and instead set up a Cardiff Taxpayer District Office. Guess where they put it? Why, in good old Ty Glas buildings in Llanishen! Yes, after 11 years of liberty I was sent back to the Gulag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This closure of the local offices pretty much coincided with the introduction of the self assessment regime and the \u2018Process Now\/Check Later\u2019 ethos. What this meant was that, whereas previously an officer would examine a Return and decide whether to accept, amend or challenge the declared income, now all Returns would be effectively accepted as they stood, with the Inspector having the right to mount an enquiry within an enquiry \u2018window\u2019 which was typically up to a year from the filing date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might not have occurred to you exactly how big a problem this presented to HMRC. Just imagine somebody put, say, 20,000 tax returns in front of you and said \u2018pick five to investigate\u2019. Where would you start? The HMRC answer was to rely on a computer to pick them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a number of features that you might expect to see in the accounts of somebody who is intentionally fiddling their taxes. For example, to explain exceptional bankings, a crook might claim to have introduced capital into the business. If takings and purchases were both being understated, this might give rise to fluctuating gross profit rates. So when examining accounts, Inspectors would often keep an eye out for capital introduced and fluctuating Gross Profit Rates. With the introduction of self assessment, the Inland Revenue\u2019s computer was programmed to award points for things like capital introduced and fluctuating GPRs. A business that scored enough points found itself at the top of the list for investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, what the computer didn\u2019t recognise was that things like capital introductions and fluctuating GPRs could also be symptomatic of a business that was going bust. If not enough money was coming in to meet the wages, the employer might sell his grand piano to put some money into the bank (capital introduced). And in frantic efforts to get more customers through the door, or to get old stock sold and out of the door, a trader might offer cut-price sales or buy-one-get-one-free offers (fluctuating GPRs). In the days before self assessment and centralisation, the officer examining the accounts and deciding which ones to investigate would have local knowledge that would help him decide. Or he might even ask around in the office or do a surreptitious visit to the business that he was thinking of investigating. Following the introduction of self assessment the decision was made by the computer \u2013 and it was often wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A review of the yield from tax investigations shows a dramatic fall that follows the introduction of self assessment. I was one of the Accounts Investigators at that time and with my colleagues I complained bitterly at the poor quality of the cases being sent to us to investigate. In desperate efforts to rectify matters, the district I was in set up a Sch D compliance unit, which I headed, that was tasked with finding ghosts and moonlighters \u2013 ghosts being those individuals who were out there making a living but of whom HMRC were wholly unaware, and moonlighters being those who, whilst known to HMRC and paying tax on one declared source, might have a second, third or fourth source that was not declared. In addition to finding ghosts and moonlighters, the team would also gather that local knowledge that had been lacking since the closure of the local offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the point where I could launch into a thousand anecdotes, but I will limit myself to three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The street search<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Taxpayer District Office in which we were based covered a very wide geographical area and one of our first actions was (believe it or believe it not) to work out exactly what was in the area that we covered \u2013 so we bought an \u2018A to Z\u2019 street map covering the entire area, took it apart and pinned it on the wall. Looking at it, we realised that there was a fairly large town in the area that we rarely visited \u2013 so our first task was to head there and walk each street to see what businesses were there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Armed with our one mobile phone (these were a recent innovation at the time) we would ring back from each street with a list of businesses to check that all of these businesses were \u2018on the books\u2019, so to speak. The first two businesses on the first street were a Chinese takeaway and an Indian restaurant \u2013 and neither was registered for tax. A quick check with the local Council Rates Department established that the Chinese takeaway had been trading for five years and the Indian restaurant had been there for eight! One particular irony was that, on checking, we found that both of them were submitting VAT Returns and the Chinese takeaway even had a PAYE scheme for its employees \u2013 but the income tax, VAT and PAYE parts of the organisation were so dysfunctional that none had spoken to the others. To add insult to injury, one of the business was called \u2018The Moonlight.\u2019 Two hefty investigations and two hefty settlements followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A clutch of cars<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On one occasion, the team had been asked to check whether a local hotel was still being renovated as it appeared to have been out of business for quite some time. When we got there we found that it was indeed still being renovated \u2013 and was shrouded in scaffolding and missing a roof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my colleagues was trying to step far enough back to take a photograph of the whole building when he inadvertently stepped into the driveway of a very large house. Glancing around, he was astonished to see three very expensive cars \u2013 an Aston Martin, a Lamborghini and a Ferrari \u2013 sitting in the drive, each of them with a consecutively numbered personalised number plate. It was the work of a moment to photograph all three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On returning to the office, we sent off to the DVLA for details of the ownership \u2013 and discovered that they all belonged to a company in the construction sector. A check of the accounts revealed no mention whatsoever of these three cars. In the subsequent investigation it emerged that the cars were hidden amongst the company capital equipment (masquerading as JCBs!). Not only had the director and his wife paid no tax on the benefits but they had even been claiming Capital Allowances on them. You couldn\u2019t make this stuff up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The building site<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Whenever land or buildings are bought and sold and Stamp Duty is paid, the Stamp Duty office would send a report to the tax office dealing with both the vendor and the purchaser. Every year a number of these reports would come to the office and there would seem to be no file for the purchaser or perhaps the vendor. This is not necessarily definite evidence of tax evasion \u2013 it might be an offshore investor or you do occasionally have wealthy individuals with high capital but little taxable income \u2013 but it is certainly unusual enough to warrant looking at. So we simply started keeping a spreadsheet of them to see if we could spot any patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a very short time, we spotted something peculiar. A new company \u2013 let\u2019s call it Newco \u2013 had bought a substantial plot of land from a trust for \u00a31 million. Four weeks later, Newco had sold the land to a national building firm for \u00a33.2 million. And Newco had never submitted any accounts and was apparently dormant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On looking into it, we discovered that the trust had been an educational trust \u2013 a school \u2013 and the land had been acres of playing fields next to the school. A check with the local authority revealed that the school had applied for and been granted planning permission to build what amounted to an entire housing estate on the site. So who were Newco?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quick check of Companies House revealed the names of six directors. A cross check with the HMRC data systems revealed that they were all teachers at the school. The explanation is that they had got planning permission and negotiated the sale price with the building company but had then come up with a scheme to take the lion\u2019s share of the profit for their personal gain. So the six teachers (who included the headmaster) had set up a company and bought the land off the school for \u00a31 million, selling it on a mere four weeks later for \u00a33.2 million. Apparently, the trustees of the trust were unaware that the directors of Newco were six of their trusted employees. In addition to the substantial tax bill, I understand the six directors also found themselves facing fraud charges. And, by the by, rather than being charged to Capital Gains Tax on their gain of \u00a32.2 million it was assessed as a trading profit \u2013 because the purchase had been made with a view to a profit on sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There endeth the anecdotes. As I say, I could go on for several hours but you get the point. In each of these cases, fairly simple levels of intelligence gathering produced spectacular results. But a mere three years later, I was recruited out of the Revenue and turned from gamekeeper to poacher, as they say (or, as one of my friends would have it, Jedi to Sith Lord). Astonishingly, a few years after that, the team that I had led was disbanded. HMRC had decided that computers and centralisation were the answer and all of these things could be done remotely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quick aside<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Something like 10 years later, I was working for one of the Big 4 accountancy firms and a partner approached me with a peculiar problem. The firm had taken on a new client and, in reviewing the accounts, had discovered that the previous accountants had been making a provision of 10% of the income to cover potential clawbacks by customers. Nothing wrong with that \u2013 but they had treated the provision as an allowable expense. Astonishingly, income of \u00a310 million had incorrectly been treated as non taxable and was sitting in a bank deposit account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The income was all liable at 40% so the tax alone would be \u00a34 million. I recommended an immediate disclosure to HMRC and suggested that an opening payment on account of \u00a35 million would help to mitigate the potential penalties. After a quick conflab with the client, I was provided with a cheque for \u00a35 million and instructed to contact HMRC as soon as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I rang an HMRC Inspector in their Fraud Investigation Service with whom I had recently been in contact and gave brief details of the situation. I asked how he would like me to get the cheque to him? I suggested a letter but he said no because they were currently in considerable arrears with their correspondence and incoming letters were being opened in date order. They were currently opening letters that had been received five weeks previously (no, I am not making this up).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could I deliver the cheque to him? His office was actually a couple of hours away but I could drive there. Again the answer was no, because he operated from offices with no public access. I would be refused entry by site security. We briefly discussed meeting in a local caf\u00e9 or pub but we both agreed it would not really be appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, could he come to me? I could show him the records, explain what had happened, he could meet the taxpayers and talk to them. Yes, he said, but (and this is the truly unbelievable part) his office currently had an embargo on travelling. They had exceeded their travelling budget for the year and were forbidden from site visits until the financial year ended. This was January and their budget year ended on 31 March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, I said, I have a cheque for \u00a35 million for you. The Inspector was deeply embarrassed and immensely apologetic but said he\u2019d speak to his line manager and get back to me. He rang back an hour later to say that he had been given exceptional authorisation to travel out to see me. However, he could only come if he used the office pool car. He had checked the rota and booked the car for the first date available \u2013 which was in four weeks\u2019 time. As I say, I include this little anecdote as an aside but it gives some indication of HMRC\u2019s direction of travel, so to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So where is HMRC now?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Well, geographically, like Alice Through the Looking Glass, they have shrunk and shrunk and are down to a mere 14 regional centres. These are located in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Croydon, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Nottingham, Portsmouth and Stratford. You will notice that there are no offices in London \u2013 that\u2019s right, the only HMRC presence in London is the Head Office staff in Westminster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond these 14 regional centres, where the bulk of the staff are located, there are six \u2018specialist sites\u2019 that are described as being for \u2018work that cannot be carried out elsewhere\u2019. These are at Dover, Gartcosh, Ipswich, Swansea, Telford and Worthing. As can be imagined, the focus of most of these is more customs duty based than tax focused, so to speak. There remain three centres which are described as \u201clong-term locations which enable HMRC to retain skills, minimise redundancies, and support Government priorities\u201d. One of these is at East Kilbride \u2013 so Centre 1 lives on! \u2013 and the other two are at Preston and Porthmadog. Finally, there are two sites, Bradford and Washington, which are described as \u2018Transitional Sites\u2019 that are \u201cdesigned to keep people working locally for longer in locations with significant numbers that would not be able to move\u201d. In other words, they are waiting for the staff in these offices to retire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In practice, the vast bulk of the active staff, and especially those involved with compliance\/investigation work, are based in the 14 regional centres. Have a look at that list again. None in London, two in Scotland, one in Wales. Nothing in England west of Bristol. That\u2019s an enormous amount of ground without any kind of local presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the consequences?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let me draw your attention to the National Audit Office Press Release of 9 September 2024, which is entitled \u2018Small businesses evading tax leave HMRC billions out of pocket\u2019. The headlines are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 HMRC estimated \u00a35.5 billion lost due to tax evasion in 2022-23 \u2013 81% from small businesses (up from 66% in 2019-20).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 HMRC does not know how successful it is in tackling tax evasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Significant weaknesses in government systems have left the UK too open to tax evasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opening paragraph of the press release goes on to say: \u201cThe UK is losing billions of pounds a year in revenue due to tax evasion among small businesses, which can easily exploit weaknesses in government systems, according to a new National Audit Office (NAO) report on tax evasion in retail.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, forgive me for the question, but do you think it possible that these events could be connected? HMRC closes down all its local offices and isolates itself in 14 small silos and tax evasion proliferates among small businesses? HMRC has no effective local presence and is obliged to admit that it \u201cdoes not know how successful it is in tackling tax evasion\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It does not take a genius to join the dots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third answer<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I said at the start of this article that I have been asked many times if I knew how to evade taxation and I have always said that I had just two answers. Those answers have been (1) have no income or (2) die. As you can imagine, the people to whom I have given those answers have never been pleased by them. When I say \u2018die\u2019, the usual response I get is \u2018what about Death Duties \u2013 IHT and all that?\u2019 to which my answer is \u2018Don\u2019t worry \u2013 you personally won\u2019t have to pay them\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, as I said, I have a third answer. It is simply to set up business in a place that\u2019s more than 50 miles from the nearest tax office and don\u2019t tell the taxman. Move every few years, but never to anywhere less than 50 miles from a tax office. Heck, you\u2019ve got plenty of places to choose from \u2013 most of Wales, an enormous amount of Scotland. Exeter is nice \u2013 that\u2019s 79 miles from Bristol. But Truro is even better \u2013 that\u2019s 165 miles from Bristol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what\u2019s that you ask? Won\u2019t the taxman come and visit? Well yes, it\u2019s possible, but look at it this way. Their Fraud Investigation Section had to get exceptional authority to book a pool car to pick up a cheque for \u00a35 million. They take months to reply to letters and over 16 minutes on average to even answer the phone. And when you look at serious evasion like the enormous proliferation in fraudulent R&D claims, well it took them the best part of 10 years to go out and arrest somebody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am, of course, joking. I would never advise anyone on how to evade tax. But the NAO report seems to suggest that a lot of traders have worked out how to evade tax all by themselves. The question is whether HMRC can work out what they need to do to catch them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Tony Monger is a former HMRC Investigator and Investigation Team Leader. Email antonymonger@virginmedia.com<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Monger travels through time to get to the roots of the tax authority\u2019s current ills. In my 47-year career in taxes \u2013 25 years in HMRC and 22 years in private practice \u2013 I have been asked many times if I knew how to evade taxation. I have always said that I had two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-october-november-2024-issue"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2145,"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions\/2145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxinvestigation.co\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}