Newsletter issue - February 07.
It has been widely reported that HMRC are now offering tax inspectors incentives of up to £2000 to meet their targets. This comes at a time when HMRC are under pressure to collect more tax in line with Government targets.
The top performing inspectors can now get a bonus of 3% while those with a good performance mark get a bonus of 1.8%. This information has been made available under the Freedom of Information Act.
Whilst HMRC has said this is a distortion of what is really happening, many tax experts believe it can only make the taxman more interested in making more enquiries with some inspectors possibly over-stepping the mark.