HMRC has stepped up its crackdown on tax underpayment by launching five new targeted taskforces. One of the taskforces is targeting restaurants in Solent & South East. HMRC is tasked with recovering more than £2.5m from the area.
Andy Hamman, Senior Tax Manager at BDO LLP Southampton: “The central issue is that the UK tax authorities still perceive bars and restaurants to be an area of significant non-compliance and therefore a just target.
“Results from the last restaurant taskforce in 2011, identified recoveries of £634k from 45 businesses and commenced prosecutions against 20-plus businesses for deliberate fraud.
“Many speculate this to be a return of HMRC’s Operation Gourmet, which focused on recouping taxes purportedly owed against staff tips, and more specifically, the way they were handled and distributed by restaurateurs and groups. Many operators, including some pretty big chains – who thought they were doing the right thing – were caught out.
“This latest restaurant taskforce is one of 30 created by HMRC since May 2011, to look at sectors where it believes it should be seeing more revenues. Whilst not another Operation Gourmet, which focused solely on tronc systems, it heralds more investigation around compliance and will be more wide-ranging than its forebear.
“These focused campaigns are a very cost effective way for HMRC to target a particular segment of the business community where they believe there may be discrepancies between what tax is due and the tax actually paid.
“This is a significant move by HMRC and it will now target the industry with renewed vigour. Staying on the right side of the taxman is something that restaurant and bar owners are going to have to increasingly focus on and resource properly.”
