More staff to scrutinise tax affairs of the UK richest
Lib Dem conference: Clegg rules out cuts 'on backs of poor'
(about 1 hour later)
Individuals with assets of more than £1m face a new crackdown on tax avoidance, Lib Dem Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander has revealed.
By Justin Parkinson Political reporter, BBC News, in Brighton
The number of people working in the Affluence Unit (AU) of HM Revenue and Customs is to increase from 200 to 300, to cope with the additional workload.
Nick Clegg has insisted the coalition will not make further spending cuts "on the backs of the poor".
Previously, the unit only scrutinised the tax affairs of people with assets and property of more than £2.5m.
The Liberal Democrat leader said he would not agree to more savings unless some form of "wealth tax" was agreed to by the Conservatives.
He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show he would "not flinch" amid growing speculation about his future.
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said at his party's conference on Saturday that the party wanted more tax on unearned wealth.
Mr Clegg also said there was "extraordinary resolution and unity" at the party's annual conference.
'Anomalies'
The Liberal Democrats are holding their annual conference in Brighton, with the leadership keen to promote a sense of discipline amid poor opinion poll ratings.
Mr Alexander said the 100 additional AU staff would cross-reference files and records to spot signs of avoidance.
'Want to pay'
He told the Sunday tabloid that the wealthiest "did best in the boom years" and so should "pay more now".
The theme of the event is "fairer tax in tough times". Mr Clegg is promising to ensure that the next government spending review will not include further spending cuts without a measure of wealth tax.
"The measure will apply to people with homes and assets of more than £1m," he said.
He said: "I think many people of considerable wealth in this country want to pay."
"They will look at anomalies and sniff out any problems," he added.
He added: "The vast majority of people in this country won't find it acceptable if further fiscal austerity was implemented on the backs of the poor....
Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader, told the BBC the party was looking at a range of "wealth taxes" over the next 12 months as part of its commitment to "deliver fairness".
"I'm not saying something as big as welfare is immune from further savings but I'm saying that the burden has to be spread fairly."
"What Danny Alexander is making clear this weekend is that people who aren't currently paying the tax they should pay, will pay.
The Lib Dems already have a policy of imposing a 1% charge on expensive properties above a threshold of £2m and are investigating further proposals.
Liberal Democrats have long emphasised their enthusiasm for making sure wealthy individuals pay their fair share of tax.
But the Conservatives oppose introducing a wealth tax, saying it would be unfair to impose it after a home or other large asset had been purchased.
At their conference last year Danny Alexander announced a special team to examine the affairs of the most affluent.
In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander promised an extra 100 HM Revenue and Customs staff devoted to fighting tax avoidance by people with assets worth more than £1m. Previously the threshold was £2.5m.
Now he has revealed HM Revenue and Customs is to add an extra 100 inspectors to the 200 already recruited, and said the scope of their inquiries would be broadened - targeting those worth more than £1m, not £2.5m as was previously the case.
Earlier this week Mr Clegg apologised for breaking his pre-election promise not to support an increase in tuition fees.
Several Premier League stars have already been forced to pay extra tax, he revealed. Mr Alexander will also write to the BBC's new director general George Entwistle to say its employees should be paid openly and transparently.
And the latest poll by Opinium, published in the Observer newspaper, puts Labour on 42% and the Conservatives on 30%.
"People and companies who, for example, so arrange their affairs that they end up paying no tax even though they make huge profits, and companies which use off-shore tax havens instead of paying tax into the revenue here.
It places the Lib Dems on 8%, behind the UK Independence Party, on 10%.
"We can't expect the public services... to be paid for by people on £5,000, £10,000, £15,000, £20,000 a year when people on £1m, £1.5m, £2m aren't paying their fair share," he said.
But Mr Clegg said he would not be deterred from the coalition's main stated aim of cutting the budget deficit, telling the Andrew Marr Show: "When you are half-way up a mountain you should not bail out.... I am not going to flinch."
But Mr Hughes denied the move was a stealth "mansion tax", saying that was a "separate issue".
The Opinium poll represents the views of 1,681 people who indicated they were likely to vote from 1,984 online interviews.
Footballers and BBC
Mr Alexander also said rich football stars would be having their affairs scrutinised.
"I am not ascribing any particular moral characteristics to footballers," he said. "But experts will identify warning signs, make sure their tax affairs are in order and approach the individual and 'have a conversation' if they aren't."
And he said he had written to the BBC to demand employees are paid "openly and transparently", after it emerged in the summer that some high-earning personalities were paid via personal service companies.
Mr Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, said during a speech at his party's conference in Brighton on Saturday that it was "just wrong that people on low and middle incomes who work hard and play by the rules are taxed so much, while Russian oligarchs pay the same council tax you do on a family home".
"Liberal Democrats are fighting to change that - lower taxes on work, and more tax on unearned wealth. I want to reward people who put in a proper shift, not those who sit on a fortune. People for whom a bonus means a few extra quid at Christmas, not a million pound windfall."
The HMRC's Affluence Unit operates in addition to its High Net Worth Unit (HNWU), which was set up in 2009 to review the personal tax affairs of the 5,000 wealthiest people in the UK, each with a total wealth of at least £20m.
HMRC has also already launched the Offshore Co-Ordination Unit (OCU) which looks to "fully exploit the increasing amount of offshore information at HMRC's disposal, including bank account data".
In October last year, HMRC announced that it was seeking to recover £7bn per annum of tax lost through evasion and avoidance over the next four years.
The HNWU collected £162m from its enquiry work in 2010/11.
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