Two charged over £1m charity relief tax fraud scheme

Two tax consultants have been charged with fraud over their part in a £1m tax scheme which took advantage of charity reliefs.

The Times reports the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) yesterday confirmed it had charged Edward Watkin Gittins and Martin Calcutt with cheating the public revenue. Calcutt was also charged with forgery. The pair are due to appear at City of London Magistrates’ Court today. The Times said Watkin Gittins was a director of Montpelier, an Isle of Man-based tax consultancy whose offices were raided as part of an investigation by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in 2010. It said HMRC had previously raised suspicions that the company had sold schemes to hundreds of wealthy clients who used t...