What is HMRC? HMRC Review

history

HM Revenue and Customs This department was formerly the Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, which officially merged on April 18, 2005. The department's logo is the crown of St. Edward surrounded by a circle.

Department Responsibilities

Responsible for the administration and collection of direct taxes, including income and corporation tax, capital taxes such as capital gains tax and inheritance tax, indirect taxes (including VAT), excise duty and stamp duty land value tax, and environmental taxes such as air passenger duty and climate change levy.

It also includes national insurance contributions, allocations to child benefit and some other forms of state support, child trust funds, payment of tax credits, enforcement of a national minimum wage, and the collection and publication of trade statistics.

Specific goals

-HMRC's two primary PSA objectives for the period 2008-2011:

Increase the level of taxes individuals and businesses pay due and the credits and payments they receive

Improving customer experience and improving the UK business environment

-Since 2016, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that he will step up efforts to deal with the VAT issue for overseas sellers.

E-commerce events

-In 2013, UK regulations stipulated that if the UK Revenue and Customs Administration made a formal request to Amazon UK, Amazon would disclose some information about the seller's account on Amazon.co.uk to this agency.

-In mid-September 2016, a new bill officially came into effect in the UK. This bill mainly aims to increase VAT tax scrutiny on overseas companies. In addition, if overseas sellers evade taxes and cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon do not take effective measures, the platforms may have to pay all taxes.

-In 2017, at 2:30 pm on September 13, local time in the UK, the UK Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) held a hearing on VAT fraud on e-commerce platforms. The hearing was aimed directly at the platforms, forcing them to face up to the VAT issue.

The UK HMRC has been putting pressure on merchants to add tax numbers and pay taxes according to regulations. Therefore, Amazon sellers who fail to upload UK VAT numbers before December 31, 2017 will be suspended from entering warehouses in Amazon's EU operation centers. If Ebay sellers still cannot provide their own VAT numbers by December 1, 2017, but still use UK overseas warehouses for delivery, then the seller's use of overseas warehouses does not comply with UK tax law requirements and is illegal operation.

- From 13 January 2018, HMRC will no longer accept personal credit card payments. Debit cards and business credit cards will continue to be accepted.

-In 2019, Amazon and eBay reached a data sharing agreement with HMRC to investigate potential VAT evaders. The agreement requires sellers to deal with their old accounts as soon as possible. It is highly likely that sellers who evade taxes will have to pay back taxes, be fined, have their accounts blocked, have their balances frozen, or have their balances confiscated.

News

HMRC is accused of collecting the recordings through a new service it launched in January 2017. The service, called Voice ID, allows UK citizens to authenticate themselves using their voice when they call an HMRC call centre.

References

• 1. The British tax agency HMRC was accused of collecting voice records of 5.1 million British people: NetEase [cited on 2018-06-20T16:00:00.000Z]
• 2. Amazon and eBay reach data sharing agreement with UK HMRC: 265 Finance [cited on 2019-10-19T16:00:00.000Z]