Can the UK Inland Revenue pursue me in Australia?

I don't think you are going to get much joy here mate either - many British IT workers, who pay their taxes, are simply fed up with you Aussies and Kiwis coming over here, working in IT, not paying taxes and then doing a runner. You give the rest of us a bad name and many think that is why Labour introduced things like IR35.

I suggest, if you are seriously concerned, that you you pay out some of that money into getting professional legal advice.

I think it was the large number of UK workers who were (even if legitimately) avoiding tax whist doing the same job as those who were paying it, that were responsible for that!

Dear Mr John Smith. I read your reply to Bob Brown, but I don't thin you answered the question he asked.

It is my uninformed view that :

1. The UK can ask the Aussie authorities for information about you
2. The Aussie authorities will provide information, but will not collect money you owe.
3. Not paying tax in the UK is *not* a criminal offence (as opposed to giving wrong information, which is). It is a civil offence. The cannot thow you in the can, and wait for you to pay up. All they can do is confiscate your assets, so you may wish to leave your cartier behind the next time you come to the uk to spend your tax free income here, or to work as an IT contractor and contribute to the entire UK economy, for which, like many of those in this newsgroup, i am most grateful to you for.

Flame responces most welcome.

If they were legitimately paying only the tax they were required to then they were paying the tax, ahem, that they were required to. They were not avoiding it.

In the vernacular sense of the word, they were most certainly avoiding it! Thats why they were all on that regime (Or most of them anyway). Working in IT, I knew many such, and the sole reason for it was was to avoid/minimise/ tax. These were people who worked in the same job, for the same employer, for years, 10 or more in one case. No complaints about what they did, it wasa legitimate thing to do, but at the end of the day it was a loophole that was being exploited.

"Transliteration" wrote

Ermm - what was the name of that jockey (back in the eighties?) who was sent to jail for not paying his income tax??

Lester Pigott, wasn't it?

Jon

I do not know of any case where someone was sent to prison for not having money. As far as I am aware, being financially irresponsible is not a criminal offence, whether it deprives the Exchequer from revenue, or children from bread and clothing.

Could it be that that jockey of the eighties got sent to prison for making false representations (or failing to make true representations) to the tax authority? Giving wrong information, or failing to give the right information, to the Inland Revenue is, in my uninformed opinion, a criminal offence.

If you have better informed information, i would be grateful if you could correct me, but let's try a bit more than citation of an unanmed jockey who went to prison. At the very least, perhaps site an unreliable newspaper ;-)

"Transliteration" wrote

My comment above was meant to be a hint - but never mind, let's help you a bit :-

Type the following three words into Google: "jockey tax evasion"

At the top of the results, is a page on the BBC news website. Is the BBC (un)reliable enough for you? ;-(

Lester... "...Piggott was a brilliant rider with a huge collection of big-race triumphs, but his career was overshadowed by a jail sentence for tax evasion."