TaxWatch is an investigative think tank shining a forensic light on who pays tax, who doesn’t, and why
The tax gap is getting worse – and by more than we thought
HMRC’s latest figures present a very different picture to previous years. The amount of due taxes going unpaid may be £6 billion bigger than previously thought — and going up, not down. Any incoming prime minister (or Chancellor) will have to go faster and further to tackle tax non-compliance if they want to stick to current spending commitments, let alone introduce new ones.
HMRC tells MPs it doesn’t know how many large businesses it’s investigating for tax fraud
On 18 May, MPs quizzed senior HMRC officials about how they’re making the biggest multinational companies pay their due taxes. HMRC officials confirmed TaxWatch’s findings that HMRC simply doesn’t know some key facts about its own tax enforcement efforts: including, astonishingly, how many large businesses they are currently investigating for tax fraud or other serious, deliberate tax non-compliance.
Private justice, public loss
While consumers’ fuel bills go up, a £1.5 billion tax bill levied on one of the world’s biggest oil traders remains unsettled. This week it announced bumper trading profits amidst the global oil supply shock. HMRC first alleged that the company’s oil trading profits were being shifted artificially to Switzerland fifteen years ago. So how are the same transactions still continuing today?
Naming and shaming isn’t working
Last year HMRC named 583 deliberate tax evaders, from small businesses to the children of world leaders. Their unpaid taxes and penalties were enough to pay for an extra GP appointment for every child in the UK, and double the figure from the previous year.
Penalties, naming and shaming aren’t working on their own. We suggest two key reasons why not.