was desperate
One day Mr. Davies received 11,000 tax bills
Brett Dylan Davis has received 11,000 bills from the tax authorities. Behind that are 11,000 Chinese companies misusing his home address.
published
Dylan Davies is worried: between November 2022 and April 2023, the Briton received about 11,000 bills from the tax administration.
Screenshot of BBC X Ray
The man went to the tax office and finally to the police, but the authorities could not help him at first.
Screenshot of BBC X Ray
The 11,000 tax bill should go to Chinese companies.
IMAGO Pictures / Loop
But they gave the Welshman the address when registering to pay the VAT.
IMAGO Pictures / Loop
-
A Welsh man has received 11,000 letters from the Internal Revenue Service in the past five months.
-
He must pay them £500,000.
-
But it’s not Dylan Davis who owes the tax office the money, it’s the Chinese companies.
Dylan Davies of Cardiff in Wales was more than a surprise when he hit 580 in a single day last November Letters from the tax administration Receive. The Briton was further confused when the mail didn’t stop flowing – Davies had now received 11,000 tax bills that were supposed to go to Chinese companies. It turns out that the foreign companies registered VAT at his address in Cardiff.
“It was horrific,” Davies said on the BBC’s X-Ray programme. Not only did he have an official tax debt of over £500,000 (equivalent to 561,000 francs), but the British tax authorities didn’t want to see trouble for a long time. The person in question shook his head: “One would think that a system with today’s technology would immediately realize that.”
Letters from collection agencies soon arrived
Davies went to the police. The department responsible for fraud and cybercrime initially couldn’t help either. They told the anxious man that they were unable to “follow the lead”. Most of the companies were online companies without a UK address.
Davies got really scared when letters from debt collection agencies started arriving. He feared bailiffs would come to his house and try to confiscate some of his belongings – or worse, confiscate his house. “I would imagine debt collectors breaking down my door and taking the TV,” he said on the BBC programme.
Davies’ address is now blocked
Meanwhile, the tax department took care of his problem. 2,356 of the 11,000 companies registered at Davis’ address were identified as real debtors. The IRS also set up a system to prevent Dylan Davis from sending more letters or registering companies at his address.
Since 2021, online companies such as Amazon and Ebay have had to collect VAT from foreign merchants themselves and pay it directly to the UK tax authorities. Financial crime expert Graham Barrow posits that these are fraud cases. “There is no other reason for you to register for VAT at a complete stranger’s address, especially when there are 11,000 companies.”
With the daily update, you stay up to date on your favorite topics and never miss any more news about current world events.
Receive the most important information directly in your mailbox every day.
“Typical entrepreneur. Lifelong beer expert. Hipster-friendly internet buff. Analyst. Social media enthusiast.”