Law: Facebook top of the taxman’s reading list

Facebook and other social networking websites are being targeted by the tax authorities.

In Ireland , the Revenue Commissioners, similar to the UK ’s Revenue & Customs, admitted that tax inspectors gathered information on taxpayers from sites like Facebook.

The argument is that people are more informal about what they say on these sites and let their guard down.

Personal information gathered from Facebook, LinkedIn and Xing was presented recently in a tax audit in Ireland .

This represents another facet on the revenue authorities’ search for information.

The Revenue & Customs recently paid £100 million for details of the bank accounts held by British citizens in Liechtenstein.