A TREASURE HUNT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 41, 18 February 1944, Page 2

A TREASURE HUNT

SALES TAX THEFT

HUE AND CRY FOR £250,000

LONDON. A great . treasure hunt, with a £250,000 prize, is being organised from end to end of the country. The search is being made by the police" of the Inland Revenue authorities, helped by Scotland Yard, the Board of Trade, traders' associations and shopkeepers. The money is purchase tax that has been paid to unauthorised collectors by shopkeepers. Wholesalers can register to be authorised to collect purchase tax on behalf of the Treasury as they collect the money for their sales. But it is not compulsory to register. The shopkeeper does not have to ask for an authority before he pays the tax, and is protected if he receives a formal invoice showing the amount of tax paid. So a number of unregistered wholesalers, whose turnover runs into many thousands of pounds a year, are collecting purchase tax and keeping it in their pockets. "A quarter of a million pounds is probably a conservative estimate of what the Treasury is losing," said an Inland Revenue official. Now traps are being set, plainclothes inspectors are keeping watch at shops and stores, and buyers are working with the authorities to run the thieves to earth. The bogus tax collectors mostly operate under frequently changed trade names and accommodation addresses, and keep no records. Some of the money goes into the pockets of apparently reputable business men, who make substantial "under the counter" sales, of which they destroy all records, under cover of their normal business.