How many times can you move to Monaco?
Dozens of news reports are claiming that property billionaire David Reuben, number two on the UK’s Rich List, moved from London to Monaco “this summer”, pushed out by the government’s tax changes and costing the economy millions. But according to official company records and a signed 2024 court declaration obtained by TaxWatch, he’s actually been living offshore since around 2014.
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.
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.
The tax gap seems to be 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?
Big corporates: tax heroes or tax sinners?
A new National Audit Office enquiry to which TaxWatch gave evidence finds that large business ‘compliance yield’ – unpaid taxes that were recovered or prevented by HMRC’s efforts – has doubled over the last three years. That begs the question: are the UK’s biggest companies avoiding paying their due taxes more than previously?
Are small businesses tax dodgers or tax victims?
Parliament’s Business and Trade Committee says tax compliance is crushing small businesses. HMRC says small business tax abuse is out of control. Can both be true?
MPs ask tough questions about closing the tax gap
On 13 January, Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee grilled HMRC’s chief and senior staff about their efforts to tackle tax avoidance, evasion and tax debt. MPs referenced TaxWatch research and investigations in questions about corporate tax reliefs, recruitment, penalties for enablers of tax evasion, and the ‘offshore tax gap’. There was good news in some of the responses – but others raised more questions.