Fraudsters caught in taxman’s blitz

By Olive Carterton

The drive to raise more tax in the UK led to 762 individuals being convicted in 2017 for their part in tax crimes.

Prison sentences totalled over 1,000 years and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) charged suspects in more than 1,000 new cases of tax fraud.
Convictions were secured for pocketing employees’ income tax contributions, failing to declare earnings and offering fake tax breaks to wealthy investors, as well as tax credits and fuel fraud.

In the ongoing fight against tax evasion, HMRC took a broad range of cheats and fraudsters through the courts for prosecution, including millionaires, those with offshore accounts, a would-be spy, accountants, data thieves and organised criminal gangs.