That's easy
>criminals that they cannot hide, even in prison,
After all - we know where you live.
Emmanuel Hening, already serving the longest sentence ever secured against a VAT-fraudster, has seen another nine years added onto his sentence. A court last week added to his 15-year sentence because he has failed to repay £40m demanded by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. Vat fraudster Henning Hening, who has dual …
"The additional nine year jail term given to Hening sends the strongest warning yet to criminals that they cannot hide, even in prison, from our actions to seek further justice... we will continue our efforts to reclaim his criminal profits."
Oh yeah, Vodaphone seem to be really scared don't they?
The claim was that it was £6bn, not £600m. However, this isn't the same sort of thing. This VAT fraud was quite simply lying on the VAT forms. In the case of Vodafone it was a "difference of opinion" about the allowability of Vodafone's tax avoidance scheme. In effect, HMRC have said that tax avoidance schemes are only allowable if they say they are, although ultimately they could get tested in court (and HMRC do not win all these cases - there are plenty where they don't).
If HMRC were confident enough about the allowability of the scheme, then they could have pushed on with it, although there was no guarantee of winning. So in this case they compromised for what they could get. Of course what can't also be ignored is the danger of a pyrhhic victory. Evenr if HMRC had won that one, it's open for large companies to move operations between countries and, in the longer term, more revenues could be lost than gained.
The truth is that countries are in competition for jobs, investment and corporate tax revenues. Turning it into some sort of morality play is a big miostake. It's a hard-headed investment decision for both companies and states alike.
nb. any extra tax paid by corporations will be refelected by lower share prices and/or dividends. That might be OK if it only hit the very wealthy, but it doesn't. It affects many people with savings, endowment policies, pensions and a whole host of other things.
but, how do they assume they will get their hands on the £40m? First, they're in jail. Second, they reportedly made £54m. Spread amongst eight members, the amount he got can't be much more than 10m assuming an unfair split (even with a fair split it's only about 6.5m each).. I'm not sure I see the logic in the request. Third - did he refuse or simply not have the money?? Big difference.
Considering they've asked him to pay back £40m and two other gang members £3.8m and £4.7m.
I'd be assuming it was a very uneven split and this guy was the ringleader, directors get paid in the millions while people working for a company get less than 10% a directors salary, why do you assume that criminals do not operate on a similar sliding scale?
It's not like this was the great train robbery, there wasn't a bundle of cash with some crooks round it saying one for you, one for me, one for you, one for you etc.
And as for the did he refuse or did he simply not have the money, he's a criminal.
By what means are you going to detemine "He doesn't have the money", you can easily appear to have no money whilst having a crapload of stuff and a crapload of money, particularly if you're a criminal (which this guy is, if it wasn't clear) if he turns around and says "I'd really love to pay you back, but I don't have the money (my dog ate it)" are you going to believe him? (Just to be absolutely clear, he's a CRIMINAL)
Here's the logic in the request -
"Tell us where the fucking money is so we can take it back and we might let you out of jail"
Or would you prefer the guy to walk free and then suddenly find £40m quid (it was down the back of the sofa, never knew it was there, how lucky is that)?
So.. is that enough slapping down?
Whether he has the money or not is quite important as the justice system needs to work within the confines of the law it supposedly enforces - it is not proportionate to try to force someone to pay back that which they have pissed up the wall. Where the burden of proof lay is a different argument. It's all crap anyway as if he got 15 years originally the 9 would be concurrent.
No, it's not a crime against an individual.
It's a crime against the entire tax paying population of the UK.
Consider the services funded by 40m tax, isn't the NHS funded by the taxpayer?
I wonder if any underfunded NHS hospitals have had anybody die in them because a drug wasn't available or a neo-natal unit didn't have the equipment it needed, there'll be some individuals affected there, hope you don't end up being one of them.
Certainly the ranking politicians want their cut before the public gets a go at the money. Seems like if one has great, seductive oratory skills and convinces the public individuals they have a DUTY to hold on to their cash, such an orator would be declared an enemy of commerce and state stability. By a stretch, such orators would be locked up and charged with treason...
It's a crime against The Man rather than the person. And it has always been thus.
Councils want to up parking fines to £120 and they think this is proportionate. Now look at the sort of fine you could get for a "minor" crime against the person such as common assault. Proportionate my arse.
So, this guy, who has committed a non-violent 'paper' crime (a large one, admittedly), against an institution rather than an individual, gets a total of 24 years - apparently because the victim is HMG and they didn't get the money back. Boo hoo.
Does anyone else see a slight problem with this? 'Justice', for instance? That's literally more than many murderers and almost all rapists end up serving!
Presumably the £40m was a figure dreamt up by HMRC. What seems clear is that there is no chance of getting the money back, even if it hasn't been disbursed already. So the only consequence of this decision is extra costs for keeping this man in prison.
Vodafone, on the other hand, is a whole different game - the company was liable, the evidence was well documented and the funds clearly exist. However, the HMRC decided to be nicer to that corporate entity than it generally is to any citizens. Wasn't that kind of them? Don't wait with bated breath for revelations about how senior management of HMRC have close personal connections, and quite possibly commercial ones, with directors of Vodafone, or you'll suffocate.
A bit like the scam over the premises of HMRC, really - owned by an offshore company that was put into that position by the helpful senior management of HMRC. The same management, in fact, that is more interested in cutting workforce numbers and cosying up to conrporations than in gaining income for public funds.
I've always been baffled by people who think white collar crime is automatically less of a problem for society than violent crime.
Unfortunately because it is such a widespread view, and the people who commit white collar crime are usually well connected, these crimes rarely get either the scrutiny or the sentencing they deserve.
If you don't think that tax evasion and corruption cause real world damage then you should spend a few brief moments studying the stastics and you'll quickly spot that countries which don't vigorously enforce these kinds of laws are characterised by crushing poverty and the routine disappearance of funds allocated for education, health and infrastructure.