by Alex Dunnagan | Mar 14, 2023
R&D reliefs predicted to cost over £9bn by 2026-27 – by far the largest corporation tax relief Fraud and error in schemes total over £1.1bn in last three years R&D ‘claims farms’ continue to hard sell opportunities to claim refunds on expenditure that often...
by Alex Dunnagan | Dec 28, 2022
TaxWatch Acting Director Alex Dunnagan gave evidence to the Treasury Select Committee (TSC) on Monday 19th December highlighting the abuse of tax reliefs. Written evidence In November we submitted written evidence to the TSC for their inquiry on tax reliefs, focussing...
by Alex Dunnagan | Nov 17, 2022
Minimal efforts to close the tax gap, despite HMRC producing a return on investment of up to 18:1 with compliance work. DWP to receive an extra £112m a year to tackle fraud, but HMRC only to receive £15m. Once again, the government is prioritising going after benefits...
by Alex Dunnagan | Nov 14, 2022
Taxpayer Protection Taskforce set to wrap up despite collecting less than 25% lost to fraud and error in the Coronavirus relief schemes. HMRC estimates that at least £3.3bn in fraud and error will be outstanding at the end of the financial year when the taskforce...
by Alex Dunnagan | Aug 25, 2022
We have recently had an op-ed published in the magazine HMRC Enquiries, Investigations and Powers. Below is the text in full. The Tax Fraud Gap The pressure on HMRC to tackle tax fraud is immense. After rolling out multiple coronavirus support schemes in a fast and...
by Alex Dunnagan | Jun 27, 2022
HMRC’s Tax Gap has increased for the second year in a row on a like-for-like basis. The latest HMRC estimates of non-compliance are £32bn for 2020-2021, or 5.1% of total tax revenues. This is the same gap as a percentage as seen in last year’s publication...