According to a report in the Guardian, HMRC is going to have access to traders’ card payment data to ensure that they’re paying the correct amount of tax.
Data on all card payments to UK firms and traders will be made available to the Revenue in order to verify the number and value of transactions completed by specific traders, and therefore ensure they’re paying the correct amount of tax.
From www.gov.uk:
Under new powers, HMRC can now access information from the UK’s merchant acquirers – the companies that process card payment transactions – to find out the number and value of transactions completed by a specific trader.
No personal data identifying the card owners or card numbers will be obtained, but this data will be used to ensure that traders have correctly accounted for all taxes due – levelling the playing field for all businesses.
The legislation allows HMRC to obtain data on card payments to all UK businesses for the previous four years.
Of course, there will be many people saying they should concentrate their efforts on the big boys, such as Vodafone, to ensure they’re paying the correct amounts of tax, as the sums which potentially could be recovered may be far greater than targeting smaller traders.
This also has interesting repercussions for card payment tools such as iZettle and SumUp, which are increasingly being used by small traders in order to accept credit and debit card payments from their clients, but may well now be included in this data.
Will this deter traders from moving to more cashless payments?