In an effort to fight back against tax fraud, HMRC has spent the last twelve months in pursuit of the county’s twenty most serious tax fraudsters. The HMRC ‘most wanted’ list includes 20 tax cheats beloved to have cost taxpayers £765 million, of which just two have been caught, and only one jailed.
Blasted as a ‘massive failure’ by Labour, the HMRC tax evaders list includes some of the country’s most egregious tax offenders. Many of those featured on the list were involved in dodging VAT payments, often as part of illegal import/export business arrangements that profited from selling tax-free goods within the UK.
VAT fraudsters featured on the list include Hussain Asad Chohan, who has fled the country to live in Dubai. Chohan is wanted for his involvement in a VAT smuggling case that cost taxpayers over £200 million. After being convicted in absentia, he’s since fled to Dubai to avoid the police.
Others on the list include Nasser Ahmed, whose involvement in a £165 million VAT fraud resulted in a six-year prison sentence. Mr Ahmed is believed to be on the run in either Dubai or Pakistan. Of the 20 people featured on the list, only one – a well-known tax fraudster named John Nugent – has been caught, tried, and arrested.
Despite criticisms of the lists relatively poor record at catching tax evaders, HMRC recently added an additional ten criminals to their ‘most wanted’ file. Photographs have been added to the list to the assist the public in identifying the criminals, most of which the government believes are residing outside the UK.
As well as its recent updates to the list, HMRC has developed an online map that documents the purported identities of the wanted criminals. Chancellor George Osborne commented on the list, adding that ‘tax fraud and evasion is illegal and won’t be tolerated.’
