TaxWatch is an investigative think tank shining a forensic light on who pays tax, who doesn’t, and why
The transparency registers that weren’t
UK ministers have praised five of the UK’s Overseas Territories for searchable registers revealing who really owns companies registered there. TaxWatch has found that one of these new registers doesn’t even exist, and others have erected last-minute legal blocks against access.
New weapons, same problems?
Stronger powers against ‘enablers’ – those who design and enable aggressive tax avoidance and evasion – are back on the table once again. But new figures show that existing powers are still not being used.
Broken offshore promises undermine the UK’s tax system
New figures on UK tax enforcement show that Pandora Papers leaks can’t supplant properly available information about who really owns offshore companies.
The gap in the Tax Gap
Quietly buried in HMRC spreadsheets released today is the news that the UK Tax Gap is consistently much bigger than HMRC previously said. New evidence suggests that the government may be under-estimating by several billion pounds the amount of income hidden offshore, and non-compliance amongst the largest and wealthiest taxpayers.