by Claire Aston | Mar 26, 2025
Photo credit: HM Treasury HMRC’s target for prosecution ‘charging decisions’ to be set 20% above the rates achieved in 2023-24. These rates have collapsed since pre-pandemic. It will be 2029 before HMRC’s target returns to the rate achieved in 2019-20 – a lost decade,...
by Simon Watkins | Feb 12, 2025
Tax evasion cost UK taxpayers £5.5bn in 2022-23, with 81% from small businesses – up from 66% in 2019-20 Prosecutions for tax evasion down 54% since 2018-19 Phoenixism cost the exchequer at least £500 million in 2022-23 HMRC lacks a specific strategy for...
by Simon Watkins | Jan 23, 2025
HMRC’s offshore tax gap estimate labelled “implausibly low” Concerns raised about lack of strategy for reducing the tax gap despite additional resources Questions over fall in criminal prosecutions and potential deterrent effect A political scuffle has erupted over...
by Claire Aston | Jan 7, 2025
Error and fraud within R&D tax relief reached £1.1bn in 2020-21 (24% of all claims) before HMRC took action to stem the losses and tighten up the claims processes. New disclosure facility launched for businesses who overclaimed R&D relief wanting to set their...
by Claire Aston | Dec 17, 2024
Sir Jim Harra, outgoing CEO of HMRC, got a tense grilling by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday when he admitted that HMRC don’t have a specific strategy or target for tax evasion within the overall tax gap, as found by the National Audit Office which we...
by Simon Watkins | Nov 14, 2024
The Government has summarised responses received to a consultation on raising standards in the tax advice market undertaken by the previous Government. Autumn Statement set out new measures and further consultation. These measures completely ignore the findings from...
