TaxWatch is an investigative think tank shining a forensic light on who pays tax, who doesn’t, and why
Anonymous online advisers mainstreaming tax secrecy strategies for ordinary taxpayers
We’re used to thinking of offshore tax avoidance and evasion as an elite, exclusive world of Swiss bank accounts and Caribbean law firms. But increasingly it involves anonymous social media channels and online consultations offering offshore entities set up online in minutes, privacy-enhanced cryptocurrency, and multiple passports. UK regulation hasn’t caught up with this reality.
Are MPs right about the tax at stake if this billionaire moves?
We took a deep-dive into a billionaire’s hedge fund to answer two questions: Is his UK tax bill “every year, £330 million”, as Parliament was told? And will that all go away if he leaves the UK?
What should we learn from multinationals about how to tax billionaires? A tax gap long read
HMRC wants to offer the wealthiest taxpayers a dedicated tax ‘concierge’ service to help them pay their due taxes. It argues that this individualised and cooperative approach has already worked with large businesses, helping to end the bad old days of multinational tax avoidance.
But in fact the ‘tax gap’ is quietly rising for both large businesses and the wealthiest individuals. The new ‘wealthy compliance plan’ needs to draw the right lessons from large business compliance. These include the need for credible sanctions regimes to create the right incentives for cooperation; and the potential benefits of ‘country-by-country’ financial disclosure for billionaires as well as multinationals.
The best spent money in Whitehall?
New figures show that HMRC’s efforts to make taxpayers pay the right tax brought in £22 for every £1 spent last year. That’s exceptional value for money. Nonetheless beneath the headline numbers there’s a more complicated story about how HMRC’s tax compliance efforts are changing.