Comments on: Utter loonery

By: Tim Worstall

Tim Worstall — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 09:48:00 +0000

The crazy thing is that if they had actually run a proper carousel fraud (ie, without the fake invoices and bank accounts, without passing themselves off) they probably would have got off. Almost all the other cases have failed because Customs screwed up the prosecutions.

What is even more crazy is that carousel fraud is so damn simple (send 50k in unmarked bills and I’ll tell you how to do it), so why did they bother with the extra stuff?

By: Hell Is Other People

Hell Is Other People — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 19:46:00 +0000

"the government should not have any greater right to collect debts than any private individual or enterprise."

Why not? As Bystander observed, that's our money. You're not going all Decent on us are you?

By: john b

john b — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 17:51:00 +0000

"Governments have for centuries protected their revenues above all else, since without money there can be no government. Customs and IR are now merged, but for a long time a commissioned Customs Officer had greater powers of entry than a constable"

Yes, which is fucking lame: the government should not have any greater right to collect debts than any private individual or enterprise.

People are right that this is thieving rather than just dodging - fair play. But if we're agreed that six years is a fair prison tariff for drunkenly running people over, lying about it and buggering off (cf the Hurst story), then the suggestion that nicking some cash is *worse* than that seems a bit mentalist...

By: bystander

bystander — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 11:56:00 +0000

Governments have for centuries protected their revenues above all else, since without money there can be no government. Customs and IR are now merged, but for a long time a commissioned Customs Officer had greater powers of entry than a constable.

Taking in the planned and sophisticated nature of the fraud the sentences seem about right to me. These people were systematically plundering the Treasury's money, and that's our money. Robin Hoods they were not.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 09:07:00 +0000

About a year ago, John wrote a similar why-oh-why piece in which he complained about footballer Lee Hughes getting a six-year sentence for, as John would have it, "crashing his car".

As with this "victimless crime" story, there turned out to be a teensy bit more to it, such as drunken driving, failure to report an accident, buggering off after it had occurred even though a man died in the crash Hughes caused, etc.

And I link to it not to score cheap points off John but to highlight (near the bottom, before the spam invasion) that he's been man enough in the past to retract sweeping accusations concerning judicial mentalism when they're clearly misplaced.

By: Matt Daws

Matt Daws — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 07:49:00 +0000

Yeah, I’m with Larry and D^2 squared here: I only recalled that I read about this a while back. It isn’t "not paying tax" but rather a complicated way of steeling money. Would you think it "utter loonery" if I robber a bank by breaking the safe (hence "victimless" as I did it when all the staff were gone), stole 40m, and then got nine years in jail for my trouble?

By: dsquared

dsquared — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 07:21:00 +0000

not sure about this one; none of us are particularly happy with the way the government spends its money but stealing forty million squid with a VAT fraud can hardly be described as "harmless" or "victimless".

By: Larry Lamb

Larry Lamb — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 05:38:00 +0000

From that account, the crime wasn’t that they were not paying VAT that they should have done, but that they were generating completely bogus invoices on which to fraudulently claim back VAT. Not "tax evasion", but theft.

By: Roberdin

Roberdin — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 18:24:00 +0000

But tax evasion means less money to spend on foreign adventurism and providing needless treatment to basically-dead old codgers!

By: Hell Is Other People

Hell Is Other People — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 14:45:00 +0000

I think he means you, David.