Neighbour evading taxes

LegacyUser · 14-02-2007 11:49AM #1

Right folks, I have a question for you as I'm really not sure how or if I should do anything about this. For obvious reasons, I'm going enreg in case any previous posts reveal my identity, perhaps to the subject of this post!

My neighbour has his own business, which isn't registered. The thing is that as far as he's told me, he's not paying any taxes. No registration, no need to pay taxes!! The guy is pulling in a couple of grand every week, or so he says. It shows too; what with the new car, foreign holidays and expensive home entertainment items.

The problem is that his "partner" has also set up another business, again with the same dodgy business practices.

So between them they're pulling in somewhere in the region of €1500 to €3000 a week without paying any taxes.

So the question arises, do I discretely let Revenue know about this or do I say nothing? He's a nice guy but at the same time, why shouldn't he pay his due like the rest of us?

Any comments appreciated.

Anti · 14-02-2007 12:08PM

Yep report him.

You might even get a cash reward too. Just make sure he dosent find out its you.

Ballyman · 14-02-2007 12:26PM

Your neighbour is one thick individual to be boasting about this to you. He will be caught at some stage and he's better being caught now before he ends up owing a massive sum and penalties.

dbnavan · 14-02-2007 12:34PM

Snitch or not? wrote:

Right folks, I have a question for you as I'm really not sure how or if I should do anything about this. For obvious reasons, I'm going enreg in case any previous posts reveal my identity, perhaps to the subject of this post!

My neighbour has his own business, which isn't registered. The thing is that as far as he's told me, he's not paying any taxes. No registration, no need to pay taxes!! The guy is pulling in a couple of grand every week, or so he says. It shows too; what with the new car, foreign holidays and expensive home entertainment items.

The problem is that his "partner" has also set up another business, again with the same dodgy business practices.

So between them they're pulling in somewhere in the region of €1500 to €3000 a week without paying any taxes.

So the question arises, do I discretely let Revenue know about this or do I say nothing? He's a nice guy but at the same time, why shouldn't he pay his due like the rest of us?

Any comments appreciated.

Mind your own business, if he gets caught its his problem, you dont want to make enemies where you live. Whats it to you! Ok so your a good citezen paying your taxes keep it up, you have nothing to worry about, dont sh*t on your own doorstep.

Rabies · 14-02-2007 12:38PM

I would go with dbnavan on this. Sure it isn't right that he doesn't pay his taxes, but let him at it. If he wants to take the chance let him do it. It will come back around.

Now, if he was claiming the dole at the same time, then I would be pissed.

egan007 · 14-02-2007 12:42PM

I think your real Boards name is TheGreenEyedMonster!

event · 14-02-2007 12:42PM

i would stay out of it

it will some out that it was you and you could find your self being singled out by the neighbours. No one would tell you anything

MikeHoncho · 14-02-2007 01:17PM

Eh. Whats with the turn a blind eye attitude from all of you. The right thing to do if you know someone is commiting a crime is to tell the relevant authorities. The neighbour is an idiot for boasting about it in the first place and deserves to get caught.

onemanband · 14-02-2007 01:39PM

We should run a poll on this thread. Is the OP:

A: A very conscientious citizen who is doing his duty, upholding the law and trying his best to ensure we live in a fair and equal society.

B: A jealous small minded individual who wants exact some form of revenge on his neighbour with his fancy dvd home cinema.

I'd vote A!!!

If you are that concerned about tax exasion you should embark on a crusade to find as many cheats as possible. Not just reporting on your next door neighbour. Maybe you could set up some drink driving checkpoints as well.

For the record I think everyone should pay their taxes. I hope that those that do not get caught and hammered. I however do not think we should be reporting our neighbours.

Oryx · 14-02-2007 01:46PM

I wouldnt shop this guy through jealousy (which is what it sounds like) but if his business was the sort of thing that created a nuisance, like cars for sale all over your estate, or working and making noise late at night, well that would be a reason. I know people should pay their taxes, Im self employed and do pay tax so it would wind me up too. But this being the country that practically invented the 'nixer', if you do report him and people find out it was you, the reaction might not be very sympathetic, and of course he'll be after your head.

Zebra3 · 14-02-2007 01:49PM

Either shop him, or ask for a cut of his illegal gains. :cool:

Owen · 14-02-2007 01:49PM

If he's not claiming the dole, then don't bother. There are many many many trades where people don't pay taxes, giving grinds, musicians, foxer work for plasters, etc, etc, etc. You sound jealous TBH.

LegacyUser · 14-02-2007 01:52PM

'1. What type of business?
2. How do you know he's not registered?
3. Does he also have a paye job?
4. He may have no need to register, it is quite possible to operate a business as an individual and still comply with all relevant legislation every October (although there is essentially a 2 year period of grace if it's a start up).

Basically, what I'm saying here is, that you probably don't have enough info here to go off tipping off the authorities, if however, the individual were to be engaged in benefit fraud, yes, I'd recommend you alert the relevant authorities, if you suspect it's simply tax evasion, keep your suspicions to yourself.
Whatever happens between an individual and the revenue is strictly confidential, and I don't know that they even have an outlet for investigating such info received from the public.
One final point, it would be very difficult for someone to evade tax on the amounts of money you are talking about, since the Criminal Justice Act came in (1994), it's clamped down on such operations, and if he is, rest assured he will be caught, and the interest and penalties will be more than enough to sate your jealousy.'

summerwine · 14-02-2007 01:57PM

I'm just guessing here but anyone that has said report him hasn't been self employed before? While it is the correct thing to report him. It sounds like sour grapes to do this. He and she will prob get caught in the long run. The longer they think they are getting away with it the larger the tax bills will be in the long run. I would stay out of it and let it be. The last thing you want to do is make enemies.

garthv · 14-02-2007 02:00PM

Leave him to his own devices,
He'll get caught sooner or later

padi89 · 14-02-2007 02:03PM

Its none of your buisness OP stay out of it.If it were a member of your own family or a close friend i doubt you would be considering reporting them, unless.....you are the jealous type??????

HereForDarts · 14-02-2007 02:05PM

In my opinion, the person who boasts about not paying tax, is most likely to be paying it, and just wants to hear his own voice.

You would look like a fool reporting him, if it turned out that all his tax is up to date.

Sure if you're self employed, you wouldnt have to do your tax return til the year end anyway.

Celtic67 · 14-02-2007 02:06PM

Op: You should really mind your own business. Let him get on with it its not adversely affecting you so why interfere?

LegacyUser · 14-02-2007 02:06PM

'Shop him.

If he's above board and lying to you, then no real harm done (he may be inconvenienced, but revenue tend not to be too aggressive unless it actually looks like he's non-compliant).

If he's not - then he's costing me (and all other tax compliant people) money by underpaying taxes.

Anonymous tip of by letter...'

LegacyUser · 14-02-2007 04:26PM

Thanks guys.

I can understand both sides of the arguments here. It could definitely look like jealousy but I would like to think it's not.

Anyway, I just wanted to guage how people see this kind of thing. I can see how self-employed people could be offended by such snitching. I didn't mean to offend anyone.

It's just that I feel it isn't fair on others. But thats just my personal opinion.

As others have said, what goes around comes around.

Thanks guys.

cheeky_guy · 14-02-2007 05:07PM

Why would you even WANT to rat something up for something thats got absolutey nothing to do with you? Bet you were a little 'tell tale' in school lol. Coward!!

Doodler · 14-02-2007 05:18PM

That's a real quandary - they have a board game with situations like this. To my mind the lesser evil is to ignore it because a) you don't know what kind of neighbour he will become if he finds out you shopped him; b) same goes for the other neighbours, and c) it's hard to imagine anybody having a cash business of that scale and not be noticed by revenue - he'll get caught anyway.

loismustdie · 14-02-2007 05:31PM

cheeky_guy wrote:

Why would you even WANT to rat something up for something thats got absolutey nothing to do with you? Bet you were a little 'tell tale' in school lol. Coward!!

it's understandable for him to feel jelous when it's been flaunted next door ro him and he's obeying the law and basically feeling screwed by it. same argument as people working on social welfare or claiming single parents when they shouldn't be.
it would easily get to honest people seeing wasters and scammers coming out financilly better.

but i would stay out of it, don't stoop to his level of underhandness and be proud of your own achievements in the knowledge that you are more ethical

Goldfinger · 14-02-2007 06:58PM

cheeky_guy wrote:

Why would you even WANT to rat something up for something thats got absolutey nothing to do with you? Bet you were a little 'tell tale' in school lol. Coward!!

I don't like personal attacks but I must say this comes close to my opinion.
It never ceases to amaze me how attitudes have changed in this country in such a short space of time.
20 years ago someone would have been ostracised for informing on their neighbour to the authorities over something like this, and rightly so.

You can argue being self-employed without paying taxes is wrong- it isn't something that would really get my goat, but obviously I couldn't rationally defend it as a practice. If everyone did it then the country would be broke.

But grassing is worse.
I couldn't live with myself if I turned into a rat.
I can't help but agree with those who say your reason for wanting to do this is probably jealousy.
Apologies if I've mis-judged you, but frankly I very much doubt you're motivated by the common good, or anything so noble!

hunnymonster · 14-02-2007 07:03PM

when he told you about his tax evasion, did you say anything to him then? If so why not?

dame · 14-02-2007 07:53PM

He must be paying something or the revenue would surely be on to him (at least I'd hope they would). Maybe he just charges some customers the full whack (with VAT) and gives a slight discount to others who pay him in cash. Lots of tradesmen do that.

I don't agree with people not paying their taxes because oftentimes they are the same ones who complain the loudest about the state of the roads and lack of funding for local groups and expect their kids to be educated in top class schools, etc. Next time your neighbour complains about anything publicly funded (such as hospitals), ask him why he thinks they might be short of funding?

LegacyUser · 14-02-2007 08:17PM

As my name says, I used to work for the Revenue and used to regularly get letters and telephone calls from 'concerned neighbours'. Many of the people they were 'ratting' on sounded like (according to the snitch anyway) the person you describe above; ie. boasting about how they weren't paying any tax and having lavish cars and holidays. Whether this was true or just an exaggeration to get the Revenue's attention I do not know as I never went out on house calls.
What I can tell you is that your letter will be looked at once and then thrown in the bin. Civil servants don't want the extra work and it's far easier to just let something like this disappear than to add it to their in-box.
Your heart is in the right place (if everyone payed the correct amount of tax we would all be paying a lot less) but ultimately you're wasting your time.

Boston · 14-02-2007 08:20PM

dbnavan wrote:

Mind your own business, if he gets caught its his problem, you dont want to make enemies where you live. Whats it to you! Ok so your a good citezen paying your taxes keep it up, you have nothing to worry about, dont sh*t on your own doorstep.

Report him like I would anybody boasting about committing a crime. There's a great many people out there that work under the counter or other dodgy things, and tbh it's not my business so I wouldn't get involved. Someone bragging about it on the other hand, well its about being more then a good citizen, it's about not wanting to live in a world when the gob****es are the ones that don't break the law.

dudara · 14-02-2007 08:33PM

@ cheeky_guy Unhelpful comments like that will not be tolerated. Please refrain in the future. FOr further information read the charter.

dudara

Byrno · 14-02-2007 08:33PM

I don't get why people seem to think that benefit fraud is wrong but tax evasion is grand. Both cost us as a country money.

In this case I would say tip off Revenue anonymously. He is getting richer by evading taxes. Even if he did pay tax he would still make a load of money so he is just being an idiot. He is stealing from us. You have a duty to report him.

sweet-rasmus · 15-02-2007 12:08AM

leave it be; you don't want to be stuck living beside a neighbour you don't get on with.

Neighbour evading taxes

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