Ireland announces clampdown on tax-cheating drivers, while a Dundee driver is disgraced.

Ireland's transport Minister Seamus Brennan has announced a crackdown on taxi drivers who do not pay their tax dues.  Under the new scheme every taxi driver will have to apply for a clearance certificate from the Revenue Commissioners before they can have their licenses renewed.

The measure had been recommended to Mr Brennan by the National Taxi Council, and was one of a number of initiatives intended to encourage a more professional taxi service and provide a proper level of income for drivers.

Welcoming the move, Vinny Kearns, vice-president of the National Taxi Drivers' Union, said that while the majority of drivers were tax-compliant, up to 3,000 drivers had a full time job and were working in the taxi 'black market' and using the extra income to buy a nice car or go on holiday.

Mr Kearns added: "This is unfair to our members, and is putting the travelling public at risk.  They are not fit to drive if they are doing a full-time day job elsewhere."

Also on the way in Ireland are a clampdown on criminals in the taxi industry and the removal of drivers' exemption from wearing seatbelts.

UK getting tough?
There are are also indications that the the UK authorities are getting tough on the tax cheats.  Six months ago the Inland Revenue told moonlighting taxi drivers to watch their step following a groundbreaking prosecution.

Mark Brown of Darlington was given a 12 month conditional discharge from Auckland Magistrates Court after he failed to tell the Inland Revenue about his business as a self-employed taxi driver.  Mr Brown, who was in full-time employment, evaded duty of over £2,400 and was also claiming Working Families Tax Credit.  He was the first person in England prosecuted under provisions in the Finance Act 2000 relating to the fraudulent evasion of income tax.  The Inland Revenue also said that it was taking civil action against Mr Brown to recover the lost tax.

In a March 2000 report to HM Treasury titled The Informal Economy, Lord Grabiner QC recommended more prosecutions of people working in the black economy, leading to the new statutory offence of 'fraudulent evasion of income tax' being included in the 2000 Act.

In his report Lord Grabiner said: "Typically, businesses in the informal economy tend to be low-wage and labour-intensive, often with a seasonal or irregular element to their work.  Examples include:…taxis and mini-cabs…"

Dundee driver disgraced
Meanwhile, a Dundee taxi driver who admitted defrauding the Department of Work and Pensions of over £45,000 had sentence deferred for reports.

James Orr had pretended to be unable to work through incapacity between 1996 and 2003, receiving incapacity and invalidity benefit totaling £45,544.

The court heard that Mr Orr had been working up to 20 hours a week for Mitchell's Taxis in Lochee (now part of Tele Taxis) but had not disclosed this fact to the DWP. 

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