Adrian Sanders, MP for Torbay, raised the recent announcement of job losses in the Torquay revenue and customs office and criticised Ministers in Parliament over their lacklustre performance in tackling tax avoidance.
Around 20 posts are expected to be made redundant from the HMRC offices in Tor Hill House Torquay that Mr Sanders claims will hamper the Government's efforts to catch tax avoiders.
Torquay tax office provided a key service for local tax matters but most matters will now be dealt with in under-staffed offices in other parts of Devon, producing fears that everyone will receive a slower service as fewer staff deal with more enquiries.
Cutting tax fraud is a major role of the tax office and estimates show that somewhere between £40-80billion is lost to the Treasury every year through tax evasion by businesses and individuals. This ranges from big banks setting up complicated schemes involving off shore tax havens to self employed people not declaring their full income. This results in higher taxes for the low paid and smaller budgets for vital frontline services.
While Minister Stephen Timms highlighted a number of amnesties and schemes to recover tax, he was unable to explain how the loss of 25,000 jobs from tax offices in the last 5 years has helped the Treasury investigate tax avoidance cases.
Adrian said, “All the problems Torbay and communities like it face could be helped immensely if the Government got to grips with this problem. Even in the age of massive bank bailouts the sum lost to tax avoidance is staggering.”
“The inability of the Government to concentrate on this has initially cost jobs in Torbay-if it continues it may well see local people across the Bay paying higher taxes.”
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