| Comment | Black cabs have the most scope for it because they pick up fares from the street with no paper trail.
The taxi meter does record fares and mileage but that can simply be reset or deleted, so by the time a tax enquiry popped up it would be useless. It may have had multiple drivers using it over that time too.
For taxi drivers HMRC would use things like reported revenue, fuel expenses, records of prebooked hires and mileage records. They can get mileage from the odo or the MOT records. An odometer isn’t required to pass an MOT though so if it doesn’t work the vehicle can still pass with “mileage unavailable” recorded. That would muddy the waters even further when it came to an enquiry.
Even if there is a mileage reading there isn’t really a way for an inspector to tell how much of that mileage was occupied mileage. There is an algorithm thats used in HMRC though that gives them an idea of typical earnings for drivers in different areas v costs & mileage. |
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