Alex Dunnagan

TaxWatch included in International Tax Review’s 2020-21 Global Tax 50

10th February 2021 by Alex Dunnagan

Here at TaxWatch we are hugely proud to announce that we have been listed in ITR’s Global Tax 50 2020-21 (paywall).

International Tax Review’s Global Tax 50 is an annual list of “the most influential figures and events in fiscal policy over the past year.” The list also seeks to recognise “who and what will be particularly important” in the coming year.

In their article about TaxWatch ITR noted:

“TaxWatch has existed for just over two years but, in that time, it has made a big name for itself.”

The article goes on to profile our work on Netflix, James Bond, Disguised Remuneration, and Covid-19, amongst other efforts.

A huge thank you to all our staff, trustees, editorial committee and supporters who made this possible through their passion and dedication to raising the important issues TaxWatch covers in its work.

Amazon’s ballooning revenues demonstrate the need for transparency in tax affairs

4th February 2021 by Alex Dunnagan

The news that Amazon’s sales in the UK have ballooned over the last year have sparked the traditional headlines about Amazon’s tax bill (or lack of it).

This article looks to tease out some of the complex issues that arise from Amazon’s tax structure in the UK.

There is no doubt that Amazon has engaged in tax avoidance in Europe and the UK. Its structure, with a European hub in Luxembourg and satellite companies in the UK and other markets, was originally designed to exploit Luxembourg’s low VAT rate on books and other tax benefits.¹ The way that the company divided profits between the UK and Luxembourg (with very little profit being declared in the UK) was based on the fiction that Amazon’s European companies were separate entities operating independently of each other.²

Much of this changed in 2015. Ahead of the UK’s introduction of a “diverted profits tax” which was designed to attack structures such this, Amazon established a UK “branch” of its main European HQ in Luxembourg.³

Its UK company, Amazon UK Services, which delivers goods on behalf of its Luxembourg parent, continues to operate, making a small amount of profit and paying a little corporation tax each year. However, the branch structure means that the company would also start reporting the sales made to UK customers from Luxembourg to HMRC and pay corporation tax on those profits.

So was that the end of the story with regards to Amazon’s corporation tax in the UK? No.

The branch structure means that Amazon does not publish any public accounts that detail the sales and profits it makes from UK customers or the taxes paid on them. All that is there is the company’s Luxembourg accounts, which show that as a whole, the company had no net tax liability and instead receives tax credits.⁴ It is possible that there was some corporation tax paid in the UK, which was offset elsewhere, but we just don’t know.

Amazon’s global accounts state that the Luxembourg entity did make a profit in 2020 as a whole, but that this was was offset by deferred tax assets.

Deferred tax assets are often the result of losses a company has made in previous years that it can offset against profits made today or in the future. Interestingly, the company also said that it still believes that its earnings in Luxembourg are uncertain, and as such, has written off some of their deferred tax assets on the basis that it will be unlikely to generate enough profit to offset previous losses against future profits.⁵

So whilst business across the world is booming (and has been booming for years), and the company is recording its highest ever profits, the accountants appear to believe that its European operations may continue to be loss making (or at least not make much profit) for a significant time to come.

For a company that was built partly on tax avoidance all of this is hardly reassuring, and Amazon’s attempts to obfuscate the issue raises even more concern.

Specifically, Amazon publish what they call their annual economic impact in the UK.⁶ This attempt at assuaging criticism of the company’s historic tax dodging seeks to set out the company’s total contribution to the UK economy, including the total amount of taxes it pays. This includes direct taxes the company pays, like corporation tax, as well as taxes it pays on behalf of consumers, such as VAT. The company states that in 2019 it paid £293m in direct taxes.

The problem with this is that the figure for direct taxes includes Employer’s National Insurance, which is a large bill for a significant employer like Amazon and will dwarf any corporation tax liability they have. The comparisons of this figure that some media outlets have made with other UK retailers’ corporation tax bills are grossly misleading.

Looking at Amazon’s global accounts, it must be said that the company does state that it pays taxes overseas. The latest annual report for 2020 published on February 3rd shows that the company had a current tax liability of close to $1bn outside the United States on profits of $4bn.⁷ However, although this tax rate of around 25% is more than the UK’s statutory tax rate, there is no indication whatsoever as to where this is paid, it might all be paid on Amazon’s operations in Asia or anywhere else. We just don’t know.

The UK government could easily rectify this lacuna. Every major multinational needs to report their economic activity, including their profits and taxes on a country by country basis. This report is then given to tax authorities on a confidential basis.

In 2016 MPs voted to give the power to ministers to compel the publication of these reports (for all major companies, not to single out any individual one). However, the government has yet to take up the offer.⁸

If the government were to do this, or Amazon were to publish their country-by-country report themselves, this would go a long way to establishing the reality of Amazon’s tax position in the UK and other jurisdictions around the world.

Two final things worth noting. Amazon’s published figures for how much profit it makes outside of the United States may well be significantly deflated by royalty payments paid by its overseas operations to the US.

Amazon’s latest corporate accounts show an adjustment in their tax liability against the US headline corporation tax rate of $372 for Foreign income deduction.⁹ This is the Foreign-Derived Intangible Income (FDII) provisions of the US tax code which gives US based corporations a discount of 7.75 per cent on royalty income on intellectual property they bring in from overseas. This suggests that Amazon’s international operations sent back almost $5bn in royalties from overseas, vastly more than the total profit they made outside the US.

Secondly, Amazon’s global accounts also show that the company received $639m in tax credits.¹⁰ These appear to be primarily related to US government subsidies on research and development. The use of tax credits to help subsidise things like research and development has become increasingly popular with governments around the world in recent years. As we have previously pointed out in our work on the creative industry tax credits in the UK, by design, much of these credits end up subsidising very large profitable corporations. It seems that the US is no different in this regard.

Our Director discussed some of the issues raised in this blog on Times Radio on 04 February 2021.

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

1 David Pegg, From Seattle to Luxembourg: how tax schemes shaped Amazon, The Guardian, 25 April 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/25/from-seattle-to-luxembourg-how-tax-schemes-shaped-amazon

2 Clair Quentin, Risk-Mining the Public Exchequer, Journal of Tax Administration Vo. 3, No 2 (2017), http://jota.website/article/view/142

3 Simon Bowers, Amazon to begin paying corporation tax on UK retail sales, The Guardian, 23 May 2015 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/23/amazon-to-begin-paying-corporation-tax-on-uk-retail-sales

4 Mark Sweney, Amazon given €294m in tax credits as European revenues jump to €32bn, The Guardian, 21 April 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/21/amazon-given-294m-in-tax-credits-as-european-revenues-jump-to-32bn

5 Amazon 10-K 2020, p.63 available from: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001018724/336d8745-ea82-40a5-9acc-1a89df23d0f3.pdf

6 Dayone Blog, 2019:Amazon’s Economic Impact in the UK, https://blog.aboutamazon.co.uk/jobs-and-investment/2019-amazons-economic-impact-in-the-uk

7 Amazon Inc 2020 10-K p.62

8 Out-Law News, UK MPs back power to make multinationals’ country-by-country tax reporting public, https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/uk-mps-back-power-to-make-multinationals-country-by-country-tax-reporting-public

9 Amazon Inc 2020 10-K p.62

10 Amazon Inc 2020 10-K p.63

What gets measured gets done?

14th January 2021 by Alex Dunnagan

Following the 2008 financial crisis and a series of high profile scandals, the issue of tax avoidance and evasion was brought to the fore of public concern. There has been a concerted effort to tackle this on both a domestic and an international level.

HMRC has adopted “the need to bear down on avoidance” as a primary objective, with the government seeking to promote action taken in this area.

In our latest report, we ask whether the current metrics used by HMRC are sufficiently robust to allow Parliament and other interested parties to hold the government to account on this important issue. We found that while the intent to do more is there, the question as to whether progress is measured using appropriate benchmarks is one worth exploring.

This report was presented in December 2020 to The Tax Administration Research Centre at the University of Exeter Business School.

The report is available in full here.

A PDF of this report is available here.

Photo by StellrWeb on Unsplash

Supermarket Super Tax Breaks

2nd December 2020 by Alex Dunnagan

Tesco has announced that it is repaying the £585m worth of business rates relief that it received from the government as support during the pandemic, saying that it is “the right thing to do”.¹

Back in March when flour, tinned goods and toilet paper were hard to find, the government announced that all retail, leisure and hospitality firms would be exempt from paying business rates for 12 months from 01 April.

We wrote at the time that while many industries would undoubtedly take a hit during the coronavirus crisis, supermarkets would not be one of them. With hospitality closed for several months, supermarkets were bound to reap the benefits of the nation staying at home.

Relief for supermarkets is big business. According to The Grocer, superstores and hypermarkets pay a total of £2.68bn in business rates a year. Add to this an extra few hundred million paid by smaller stores and the total bill hits £3bn.

We asked “will the public continue to support the government if they feel that their tax money is being spent on companies that are set to do very well out of this?”

In an op-ed in The Guardian our Executive Director pointed out that in Wales “the government has reversed its decision to match business rates relief in England and is excluding the largest premises from accessing the relief. It plans to divert the savings (which it claims will amount to £120m) to help smaller businesses and charities”.

Our suggestion at the time, which featured in The Times, was that “it may be a better idea for the government to take a more targeted approach, with support being directed towards businesses forced to close, whilst those that remain open and thrive continue to pay business rates in the normal way.”

Since then we have seen supermarkets post bumper profits. Sainsbury’s profits rose by 26 per cent in the six months to 19 September. The grocer received relief on business rates worth £230m in the first half of its financial year and then paid £231m in dividends to shareholders.²

It’s not just grocers who have benefited from the coronavirus windfall, with some non-supermarket retailers also posting huge covid-related profits. The most notable recent example was B&M, which saw huge increases in profit over lockdown while receiving £38m in business rates relief. B&M’s answer to this increase in profit was to pay a £250m special dividend to investors, on top of increasing the interim dividend by 59.2 per cent to 4.3p a share. The result of this was that the billionaire brothers behind B&M received a £44m payout.³

Julian Richer, founder of UK retailer Richer Sounds (also Chair and Founder of TaxWatch),⁴ flagged the issue to the CBI last month saying “Now I get it for shops that are closed. The supermarkets have got customers queuing around the block. Why have they had a rates holiday? Hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Maybe they should refund their rates bill.”⁵ The CBI has repeatedly urged firms to “take only what you need”.

Tesco chairman John Allan said “The board has agreed unanimously that we should repay the rates relief we have received. We are financially strong enough to be able to return this to the public, and we are conscious of our responsibilities to society.” This is a commendable stand to take and should be applauded. The decision by Tesco will put pressure on other retailers that have done relatively well this year to do the same.

The question that should be asked though is whether this action should be voluntary. If we rely on the goodwill of the boards to return any help they don’t need, the main beneficiaries end up being businesses that don’t need support but care less about their reputation.

UPDATE: Since we published this article, Morrisons announced on 02 December that they would follow suit and repay £274m of business rates relief. Sainsbury’s then announced on 03 December that they would return £410m of business rates relief. This was followed by Asda who agreed to pay back £340m, Aldi who will pay £100m, B&M which will pay £80m, and Lidl £100m. This takes the total recouped from retailers to £1.9 billion.

1 Tesco decides to repay business rates relief, Tesco, 02 December 2020 https://www.tescoplc.com/news/2020/tesco-decides-to-repay-business-rates-relief/

2 Sorry Sainsbury’s, but the pandemic also created a financial windfall, The Guardian, 05 November 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2020/nov/05/sorry-sainsburys-but-the-pandemic-also-created-a-financial-windfall-rates-relief

3 B&M bosses set for £44m payout as lockdown profits soar, The Times, 13 November 2020, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b-m-bosses-set-for-44m-payout-as-lockdown-profits-soar-tpmwwwlfs

4 Disclosure: Julian Richer sits on the board of TaxWatch and is also a major donor. https://www.taxwatchuk.org/about-us/

5 Big grocers told to repay business rates billions, The Times, 04 November 2020, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/big-grocers-told-to-repay-business-rates-billions-jwn0krbtc

TaxWatch director gives evidence at House of Lords

6th November 2020 by Alex Dunnagan

On Monday 26 October our Executive Director George Turner gave evidence to the Finance Bill Sub-Committee of the House of Lords, with regards to disguised remuneration and the draft Finance Bill 2020-2021. Greg Sinfield, President of the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber), and Malcolm Gammie QC, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, also contributed evidence during this session.

Asked how easy it was to find disguised remuneration schemes, Mr Turner responded that after reading HMRC’s Spotlight which looked at tax avoidance promoters targeting NHS workers,¹ he carried out a “secret shopper” exercise, and that a simple Google search revealed links to professional companies trading in these schemes. Mr Turner said it was “a myth” that there were just a few obscure or black market operators of such schemes left, “acting from above a chip shop or something”. “The reality is that these are very highly professional organisations. I was looking for mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes. They need to contact consumers and drum up business somehow, so it was depressingly easy to find these companies.”

After giving his details and posing as a high paid employee, he was given a callback within an hour from one company and was advised he could keep 83% of his earnings tax-free if he signed up to their scheme. The scheme was described as a “split payment”. “Basically, your employer would contract with the agency or whichever provider it recommended. You would be paid minimum wage or thereabouts, which would attract no income tax charge or a very, very small one. Then the balance of your payment would be given as an employee advance, as they called it in this case, based on future profits. It was said to me that this was exactly how John Lewis employees were paid, which was a clear and transparent lie.”

Mr Turner told the sub-committee that he received marketing material, which he has handed over to HMRC, that stated that the schemes were in line with the latest HMRC rules. This was was “categorically not true”.

He has since been subject to targeted advertising promoting tax avoidance schemes.

Mr Turner said that these schemes are fraudulent in that there is “fraud against the user who is provided with all sorts of fake assurances” and that there’s a further fraud “against the revenue in the way that these schemes are constructed”.

When asked is it possible for an individual to sign up without knowing its fraud, Mr Turner said that it is understandable that some users might sign up to a scheme if they are provided reassurance by their employer and the scheme seller. In one instance, an individual reached out to TaxWatch saying that they had signed up with a company which told its clients that it was paying taxes on their behalf, but actually, the provider was keeping the supposed tax bill for itself.

Mr Turner continued, telling the committee that “there is zero possibility that HMRC don’t know who these people are and what they are doing”, before going on to suggest that the sellers of these schemes should be prosecuted for fraud. “Research done by Kantar earlier this year on behalf of HMRC found that the 20 so-called hardcore promoters had been engaged in this practice for many years and were all well known to HMRC. It is frankly an absolute scandal and an indictment of the performance of HMRC that these things have not been shut down.”

Questioned by Baroness Bowles as to what HMRC had done after TaxWatch had reported these schemes, Mr Turner said that following submitting evidence he had heard nothing back. Mr Turner went on to say that while HMRC has done a lot of work on disguised remuneration schemes, what they haven’t done is “the one thing that would be truly effective, which is simply to apply the criminal law”, and that “if HMRC were to bring successful prosecutions for fraud, it would be able to pursue these people under proceeds of crime legislation and recoup substantial amounts of money for the Exchequer.”

Mr Turner highlighted that there is often a perception in the UK that tax avoidance is lawful, with promoters playing on that misunderstanding, and that influential members of the law profession have been involved in disguised remuneration schemes. He went on to highlight to the sub-committee that “there are senior barristers who advise on these schemes and they need to be held to account as well”, and that “just because someone wears a wig, it doesn’t make them any different from someone who wears a balaclava.”

At TaxWatch we have previously submitted evidence to HMRC calling for those who sell disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes to be investigated for tax fraud, and written to the Economic Crime Unit of the City of London Police, calling on the department to open an investigation into sellers of these schemes for defrauding their clients.

The debate is available on Parliament Live here.

Photo by Recal Media from Pexels

1 Tax avoidance promoters targeting returning NHS workers (Spotlight 54), HMRC, 30 March 2019, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tax-avoidance-promoters-targeting-returning-nhs-workers-spotlight-54

No Time To Pay Tax?

18th October 2020 by Alex Dunnagan

The UK companies behind the James Bond films have minimised tax for decades whilst receiving tens of millions of pounds in subsidy from the UK taxpayer.

TaxWatch’s latest report – No Time to Pay Tax? – delves into the accounts of EON Productions Limited and its associated companies (EON). We found that despite Skyfall and SPECTRE grossing just shy of $2bn at the box office, EON generated small profits and smaller tax bills in most years whilst profits in the hundreds of millions are declared overseas.

In recent years, the UK group of companies headed by EON Productions Limited has declared a pre-tax loss, while simultaneously receiving tens of millions of pounds in tax credits via the UK’s creative industry tax relief scheme.

International tax rules state that profits should be allocated based on where value is created, with tech companies often using this argument to explain why they only pay taxes in the US. If this is the case, why isn’t a significant amount of tax paid on the profits of Bond films in the UK?

Find out more in our latest report here.

A PDF version of our report is available here (printer-friendly version here)

This research was featured in The Observer and the Mail on Sunday among others.

Image by Glen Ratcliffe

TaxWatch to HMRC: Prosecute sellers of disguised remuneration schemes

2nd October 2020 by Alex Dunnagan

TaxWatch Executive Director, George Turner, has written to HMRC calling for those who sell disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes to be investigated for tax fraud. We have previously written to the Economic Crime Unit of the City of London Police, calling on the department to open an investigation into sellers of these schemes for defrauding their clients.

HM Revenue & Customs is holding a consultation and has asked for views on ways to tackle future use of disguised remuneration tax avoidance. The consultation sets out an array of rules that HMRC has introduced in recent years in an attempt to restrict the ability of promoters of tax avoidance schemes to operate effectively.

However, these measures stop short of the one thing that HMRC could do to effectively shut down the sale and marketing of these schemes – the application of existing criminal law to prosecute those who design, operate, and promote dishonest tax avoidance schemes.

There is a myth that appears to have taken hold that the promoters of tax avoidance schemes have done nothing wrong, and that the promotion of a tax avoidance scheme is “not against the law”.

However, under the law, where someone is involved in the promotion or operation of a tax avoidance scheme that is dishonest, criminal proceedings can be brought against them. This was demonstrated in the case of R vs Charlton, when the Crown successfully brought a prosecution against three accountants and a barrister for their roles in the design, operation and promotion of a failed tax avoidance scheme. All of the defendants received custodial sentences.

HMRC’s characterisation of the activities of the promoters of disguised remuneration schemes, which includes “trying to hide their activities from HMRC by not complying with their legal obligations to disclose their scheme”and “ignoring or only partially answering HMRC enquiries”, clearly fit the circumstances under which HMRC should open a criminal investigation under their criminal investigations policy.

Despite this, criminal investigations have been rare, and we are unaware of any promoter being successfully prosecuted for tax fraud.

The letter also highlights the importance of criminal prosecution in order to protect the public from exploitation by dishonest promoters. Users of disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes often end up being the victims of fraud themselves, with scheme promoters providing knowingly false and misleading information about the legality of these schemes in order to persuade people to join them. However, whilst scheme users have been actively pursued by HMRC, relatively little has been done to confront the lawyers and tax professionals who created the problem in the first place.

The full evidential submission can be found here.

This research was featured in Contractor UK and the Yorkshire Post

Photo by George Turner

Parliament forces Netflix to respond to TaxWatch research

24th September 2020 by Alex Dunnagan

Netflix has agreed to respond to TaxWatch’s investigation into the company’s tax affairs after a request from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee. Our report revealed that the TV giant had streamed up to $430m of profits into offshore tax havens in 2018 (we have since published a follow up bl og post taking into account 2019 figures). This research into Netflix’s tax affairs has previously been the subject of an adjournment debate in the House of Commons.

The DCMS are currently holding an inquiry into ‘The future of public service broadcasting’, and on Tuesday 15 September held a formal meeting in which senior Netflix executives Benjamin King, Director of Public Policy UK and Ireland, and Anne Mensah, Vice President of Original series, participated.

During the oral evidence session the Labour MP for Cardiff West, Kevin Brennan, put our report to Mr King, in saying:

“the revenues from subscribers in the UK in 2018 for Netflix was £860 million, yet Netflix pays very little tax in the UK because that money is credited to a Dutch company….What is your response to that issue about the way in which Netflix is structured allegedly to avoid paying tax in the UK?”

Mr King responded:

“I would like to start by emphasising that we do pay all the tax that is required of us under UK law and every other jurisdiction that we operate in. Our accounts from 2018, which is our most recently published set, showed that the operating profit we made across our entities at that time was offset under HMRC’s group relief regime rules by the losses that we made on certain of our productions.”

Mr King went on to say that because Netflix’s European Headquarters is in the Netherlands, profits from the UK “are taxed in the Netherlands, which is completely in accordance with international norms”.

Mr Brennan asked if there was any truth to the allegation that Netflix is intending to take advantage of High End TV Tax Relief in the UK while not paying any profit here. Mr King responded that there were “a great many inaccuracies” and “false assertions in the TaxWatch report that we noted at the time of publication”, to which Mr Brennan questioned why Netflix did not respond to TaxWatch’s initial request for comment prior to publication.

Mr King stated that “we were not consulted on the detail of the calculations”.

As TaxWatch has now set out in a letter to Mr King, this is incorrect. TaxWatch contacted Netflix posing a number of questions that arose out of our investigation, while setting out in detail our calculations and research in advance of the publication of our first report in January 2020. We made it clear that we were contacting Netflix to allow for the opportunity to raise any factual issues and to provide a comment in advance of publication.

In a subsequent phone call with a representative of Netflix, TaxWatch’s Executive Director George Turner made it clear that we would be happy to correct any inaccuracies in advance of publication if Netflix provided us with the disputed details.

We were assured we would receive a full response to our request for comment, however, after several days of no further contact, Netflix told us that the company had decided not to respond.

For that reason we were surprised to see the claims made about our research at the committee hearing.

Mr Brennan pointed out that Netflix were given an opportunity to respond, and asked if Mr King wished to make a comment during the committee proceedings. Mr King stated that he did not have TaxWatch’s report in front of him, and repeated the claim that there are “certainly a great many inaccuracies in the report”. When pressed further he agreed that Netflix would provide a written response.

We have since re-sent our report and initial correspondence to King in order to assist with Netflix’s response to the DCMS.

A transcript of the session is available here, with video footage is available here. Reference to TaxWatch’s research begins at 1059hrs.

This story was reported in Deadline.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels.

TaxWatch calls on City of London Police to investigate fraudulent tax schemes

19th August 2020 by Alex Dunnagan

TaxWatch is calling on the Economic Crime Unit of the City of London Police to open a fraud investigation into the promoters and marketers of disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes.

Recent press reports have revealed that disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes continue to be marketed to the public, including the direct targeting of NHS workers during Covid-19 pandemic. These schemes are marketed as “lawful” means of reducing a tax liability despite very clear legal rulings to the contrary.

The fraudulent marketing of schemes leads to contractors handing over substantial fees to dishonest tax advisors on the false belief that what they are doing is lawful.

However, when the schemes inevitably fail, users will be left with crushing financial losses.

Writing to the Economic Crime Unit, Director of TaxWatch George Turner said:

“Now that the legal position on the taxation of disguised remuneration schemes is crystal clear, anyone continuing to design, market, and promote loan schemes can not be doing so in the honest belief that these are anything other than unlawful attempts to evade tax.”

“Promoters continue to perpetrate these schemes because they are able to generate very significant fee income from scheme users, and if HMRC challenge these schemes, the users, and not the promoters, will be held liable for the taxes owed.”

“These schemes are an economic crime which cost the Treasury hundreds of millions a year. Until the promoters of fraudulent tax schemes are prosecuted, they will continue to ruin lives.”

The full text of the letter can be found here.

This was reported on in Law360, Computer Weekly, and Contractor UK.

Photo by Bruno Martins on Unsplash

Rogue Landlords

5th August 2020 by Alex Dunnagan

Up to £1.73 billion a year in tax is being dodged by unscrupulous landlords. The new figures are revealed in a report by TaxWatch, and suggests that levels of non-compliance have exploded since 2010, the last time that HMRC published official figures on the scale of evasion in the buy-to-let sector.

In that year, HMRC estimated the amount of tax lost to residential landlords not declaring their income was £540 million.

The report recommends that the government introduce a national register of rental properties to improve tax compliance in the buy-to-let sector.

Read the full report here.

This research was featured in Vice, the Mail on Sunday, Law360, and Tax Notes International among others.

Photo by Ethan Wilkinson on Unsplash

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