HMRC breaks silence over powers to check 'every' UK bank account
HMRC has addressed its powers to check "every" UK bank account. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is clamping down on fraud, and staff have been given power to access bank accounts and seize sums of cash.
The Finance Act 2011 meant that the government tax arm was already able to request bank details to verify people are paying the right amount of tax. Richard Las, chief investigation officer and director of the Fraud Investigation Service at HMRC, said the powers are used for "bulk data gathering".
Mr Las said: "I guess it is not just the banks, but we do get the information on interest-bearing accounts. It is an annual exercise, not a real-time exercise."
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He added: "It is clearly timed in such a way that it helps us understand whether the right amount of tax has been paid on interest that has been accrued.
"We are talking about large accounts because in most cases people’s interest is quite small, but there will be some people who get a lot of it.
"We have a huge amount of controls over how we manage that information and how we use it and protect it; they are our normal requirements as with any other taxpayer data.
"We have information from merchant acquirers on transactions that businesses might make, for example."
HMRC analysed the merchant data in order to identify discrepancies between the merchant acquirer data and tax / VAT returns submitted by traders, reported Birmingham Live.
WLH Tax has dealt with a large number of investigation cases which have commenced as a result of a mismatch between the Merchant Acquirer data held by HMRC and the turnover disclosed by a particular business on their respective tax or VAT return.
Restaurants, bars, coffee shops, hairdressers, beauticians and high street retailers are high on HMRC’s list of targets.
Mr Las said: "We also have information that we get from online platforms in terms of sales and things like that. It is all part of bringing that information together."
