HMRC is claiming to be able to find tax-evading taxpayers by monitoring eBay? But how are they able to do this? When we asked HMRC, they refused to discuss how they might be getting the information they’d need to link a (usually) anonymous username to a taxpayer. Interested? We were.

Yesterday, HMRC issued a press release talking about their ‘areas of interest’ for 2011. In a similar vein to the previous Plumbers’ and Doctors/Dentists ‘amnesties’ (HMRC prefer to call them ‘opportunities’ rather than amnesties as you still have to pay any unpaid tax), the newest targets on the list are teachers, who do outside tutoring or exam marking, and eBay sellers.

An HMRC spokesman said that they are not interested in the data on every eBay user. The example they gave is that Mr Smith who disposes of 2 china pieces a month is probably clearing out the loft, but Mr Smith who sells 50 china mugs a day is probably trading. And they do have a point, someone selling that kind of volume would most likely be....Read more HERE on this story