NigelT wrote on Jun 26
th, 2012 at 3:34pm:
What about the thousands upon thousands of PAYE's who do cash jobs on the side, take paper, pens, staples, a few bits and bobs home from the office or factory, spend a large proportion of their day on Social media sites, and think nothing of it. In fact take it almost as a right! All of which is effectively stealing but is present in every working environment. Maybe we should all jump on them. The fact is, the vast majority of TAX that isn't collected and should have been due is from the very top few percent on national and international companies and super rich individuals who pay a trifle compared to everyone else. Look at some of the recent football clubs, pay millions for players, pay the players many tens of thousands of pounds a week, charge the fans an arm and a leg to get into a game, then don't pay millions in tax, call in the receivers and end up doing a deal with HMRC to pay a few pence in the pound.......that's where the governments time and effort should be focused.
PAYEs doing cash jobs on the side are tax-fiddling part-time self-employed people - there is no other way to describe them. Social media is banned at many large employers - as are timewasting websites such as webmail, ebay etc.
Football? Well what mug would pay to go and see that? Even if I found the game in the slightest bit appealing (apart from international games), I would not want to be lining the pockets of such arrogant walkers.
The big big problem here, which will remain until the law is changed, is that any self-employed tax fiddles are illegal. The super-rich & corporation tax schemes are, unfortunately legal. It's up to the HMRC to close the loops, and then enforce them.
If people want to fiddle their books, that's not my issue - but if they are caught, then pleading hardship and the fact that everyone else doing it is not a good reason, nor a good excuse.