Written evidence to be reported to the House
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
12:00 pm
Professor Wikeley: I am not expert on the tax system. I have talked to those who are, and my understanding is that the Revenue, not surprisingly, concentrates its investigative resources on the cases that it thinks are the most serious and that will produce the most return to the Exchequer. That makes good sense. Such cases will not involve whether a plumber is earning £15,000, £20,000 or £25,000 a year. For self-assessment purposes, if £15,000 or less were involved, we would be talking just about three-line accounts, which could hide all measures of things. Even above that figure, if it is in the band of what one might expect a plumber to earn, HMRC will leave it and will not look at it from a tax point of view. I do not see how HMRC will suddenly undergo a cultural shift and start examining these relatively small cases from a child support perspective.