You may recall from earlier posts the concerns raised over HMRC and their report on “lost” revenue and people paying the “right” amount of tax – well tax investigations, employer compliance visits, tax enquiries have all now taken a sinister turn as it has been announced (via a Parliamentary answer) that HMRC are using anti-terror laws to spy on those suspected of not paying the “right” amount of tax. 5492 requests were granted to HMRC officers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000.

The RIPA powers enable officers to watch or follow suspects, and use informants to snoop on them. The statistics indicate that the number of cases in which HMRC has used the anti-terror powers has increased by approximately 75% in the past four years.

The concern here is that these powers are used as a weapon of first resort and not what they were intended for. We have all heard before about these powers being abused by councils across the land, spying on householders and their dustbins, dog fouling, school catchment area claims etc – so watch out, you don’t know who may be watching you or someone you know!